Drenagh is a 19th century house and garden in Limavady, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The property is located on the road to Coleraine.
The present house was designed by Charles Lanyon and was the architect's first major commission. It was completed in 1835 and has been the home of the McCausland family since. There are terraced gardens in the Italian style, an arboretum, and a fountain inspired by one at the Villa d'Este, near Rome. As well as being a family home, the house and grounds are hired out for conferences, weddings and as a film location. Shooting and fishing are also available in the grounds. Lady Margaret McCausland, daughter of Earl Mount Edgecombe, embellished the botanical beauty of its park with a pink and blue English garden and an all white moon garden.
The family name McCausland goes back more than 900 years to an O'Cahan named Anselan, son of Kyan, King of Ulster. Anselan was forced to leave Ireland in about 1016 on account of his share in a ‘memorable stratagem where he and other young Irishmen dressed in women’s attire surprised and slaughtered their Danish oppressors’ (The Vikings). The family traces its roots to Malcolm II of Scotland's 11th century noble court. When Malcolm II of Scotland heard of Anselan's feats he invited him to become his Master Of Arms and ‘bestowed ample lands upon him in The Lennox’.
Twelve generations later, in the 1540s, his descendant Baron Alexander McAuslane returned to Ulster with his brother Andrew and settled in the Strabane area. The first McCausland to live at Drenagh (then called Fruithill) was Robert McCausland, Alexander’s grandson. Robert was bequeathed the Estates when he married the daughter of William Conolly, a wealthy self-made man and speaker of the Irish Parliament. Robert named his first son Conolly McCausland in reverence to his father-in-law, the name is still used in alternate generations to this day. A large painting of Robert and his family now hangs in the dining room at Drenagh. The first Conolly McCausland married the heiress Elizabeth Gage and had a son, Conolly McCausland, who married Theodosia Mahon from Strokestown, County Roscommon. Their son, Marcus McCausland (1787-1862), was responsible for commissioning Sir Charles Lanyon to build the present house. The former house ("Fruithill") can be seen through a window painted in the portrait of Robert McCausland and his family. Marcus and his wife, Marianne (née Tyndall) produced an heir, Conolly Thomas McCausland(1828-1902).
Conolly Thomas was High Sheriff of Londonderry in 1866. He married Laura St John, daughter of St Andrew Beauchamp St John, 15th Baron St John of Bletso. Their daughter Laura married Reginald Gibbs and was the mother of Michael McCausland Gibbs. Conolly's son Maurice Marcus McCausland (1872-1938) lived through both the best and worst of times at Drenagh as in 1902, through the Irish Land Acts, the Government compulsorily purchased 75% of the estate. Many other estates, in comparison, were taken off their owners in their entirety. Some were burned to the ground before they could be sold at any price. His daughter Helen married Lucius Thompson-McCausland.
Maurice's son Conolly Robert McCausland (1906-1968) fought in the Second World War and was reportedly so deeply moved by what he had witnessed that he was received into the Roman Catholic faith, despite knowing he had signed a codicil to his father's will barring him from inheriting should he become a Catholic. The will was contested and was found valid, although the codicil applied to Conolly Robert himself but not to any of his direct descendants. So, upon the death of Conolly Robert McCausland in 1968, his son Marcus Edgcumbe McCausland (1933-1972) inherited Drenagh. [1]
On 4 March 1972, Captain Marcus McCausland, aged 39, a Catholic member of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), became the first UDR soldier murdered by the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA). He was shot dead by the Braehead Road in Derry.[2] The Captain's own son, Conolly Patrick McCausland, lives at Drenagh with his wife Sheelagh (née Williams) and their four children.