History The Drenagh estate, then known as Fruithill, was acquired from the Bishopric of Derry by William Conolly (1662-1729), a wealthy self-made man and speaker of the Irish Parliament. By his will he left his interest in the property to his agent Robert McCausland “as an acknowledgment for the faithful service he has done me”,Will of William Conolly of Celbridge, Co.Kildare, dated 18 October 1729: TNA, PROB11/636/185. and the bequest allowed the McCauslands to establish themselves as county gentry.Patrick Walsh, The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy: The Life of William Conolly, Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, 2010, p. 21. McCausland was the grandson of Baron Alexander McAuslane who had settled in the Strabane area in the 1540s, and he named his first son (by his wife Hannah, née Moore)Sir Bernard Burke and A. C. Fox-Davies, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland, Harrison & Sons, London, 1912, pp. 433-434. Conolly McCausland for his employer. 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.
History The Drenagh estate, then known as Fruithill, was acquired from the ,Bishopric of Derry by William Conolly (1662-1729), a wealthy self-made man and speaker of the Irish Parliament. By his will he left his interest in the p,roperty to his agent Robert McCausland “as an acknowledgment for the faithful service he has done me”,Will of William Conolly of Celbridge, Co.Kildare, dated 18 October 1729: TNA, PROB11/636/185. and the bequest allowed the McCauslands to establish themselves as county gentry.Patrick Walsh, The Making of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy: The Life of William Conolly, Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge, 2010, p. 21. McCausland was the grandson of Baron Alexander McAuslane who had settled in the Strabane area in the 1540s, and he named his first son (by his wife Hannah née Moore)Sir Bernard Burke and A. C. Fox-Davies, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland, Harrison & Sons London, 1912, pp. 433-434. Conolly McCausland for his employer. 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.