Drenagh

Drenagh is a 19th-century house and gardens near Limavady, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Drenagh has been the home of the McCausland family since 1729, and the present house was built in 1835. It was the first major work by Charles Lanyon, known for his work in Belfast. The gardens include features from the 18th century, as well as an extensive 19th-century Italian garden and elements added in the 1960s. The house is a Grade A listed building.

The Drenagh estate, then known as Fruithill, was purchased by William Conolly (1662-1729), a wealthy self-made man and speaker of the Irish Parliament. Conolly's daughter married Robert McCausland, who inherited Fruithill on his death. McCausland was the grandson of Baron Alexander McAuslane who had settled in the Strabane area in the 1540s, and he named his first son Conolly McCausland for his father-in-law. In the 1730s Robert McCausland built the first house at Fruithill, located to the south-east of the present building, and in the 1790s this house was extended. Nothing remains of this house, though a walled garden remains from this period as well as elements of the demesne landscape.

Conolly McCausland married the heiress Elizabeth Gage and had a son, also Conolly McCausland, who married Theodosia Mahon from Strokestown, County Roscommon. This second Conolly McCausland approached architect John Hargrave to design a new house, but only the gate lodge was built prior to the deaths of McCausland and Hargrave. In 1836 their son, Marcus McCausland (1787-1862), commissioned Sir Charles Lanyon to build the present house. Marcus and his wife, Marianne (née Tyndall) produced an heir, Conolly Thomas McCausland (1828-1902).

Conolly Thomas McCausland was High Sheriff of County Londonderry in 1866. He married Laura St John, daughter of the 15th Baron St John of Bletso. Their son, Maurice Marcus McCausland (1872-1938), lived through the Irish Land Acts, whereby the Government compulsorily purchased 75% of the estate. Their daughter, Laura, married Reginald Gibbs and was the mother of Michael McCausland Gibbs (1900-1962), an eminent Anglican clergyman.

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