Dromdihy House,

Co. Cork.

Documenting our Heritage

Dromdihy House was built by Roger Green Davis in 1833. Davis worked as the land agent of Sir Arthur de Capel-Brooke and through various transactions, had acquired his own considerable land holding. He evicted several tenants from the Dromdihy townland and transformed it into his own private wooded estate. Davis built an impressive Greek Revival house, ornamented with Doric columns, with a portico at the eastern end. The stonework was reputedly cut by craftsmen who had been bought in from Italy. These fine craftsmen however did Davis no favours when it came to the roof of the house which immediately began to leak. The house interior was soon suffering from both dry rot and wet rot.

Dromdihy translates from Irish as 'The hill of the round hollow'. Lewis records the situation of the house in his topographical dictionary as 'A handsome mansion near the summit of an eminence, from which a splendid prospect is obtained of the surrounding country'. A further observer records that Mr Davis with the assistance of his two sons farmed 2000 acres of land and that his fine residence bespoke the success with which his herculean labours were crowned.

Roger Green Davis's son, John Davis esq. was called to the Irish bar on 18 Jan 1845. The Davis family would later immigrate to South Africa, selling the Dromdihy estate to William Stopford Hunt. Mr Hunt is recorded as farming the Dromdihy estate in 1897 but by 1911 he had let the house to Lieutenant General Sir Lawrence W. Parsons.

Parsons is recorded as occupying the house with his wife Florence and four servants; Hannah O'Keefe, age 36, Cook; Agnes Coonan, age 22, Parlour maid; Joanna Ryan, age 24, Housemaid and Nora Ryan, age 17, Kitchen maid.

The Lieutenant General, an Irish protestant who had been born in 1850 and served as a Major in 1886, a Lieutenant Colonel in 1896 and seen service in South Africa and India had retired from service in 1909. His retirement however only lasted a few years. In 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, Lord Kitchener appointed him to command the British army's 16th Irish Division. The division was said to be the embodiment of Nationalist and Catholic Ireland. Parsons had received orders to clear the division's 47th Brigade of its earlier recruits in order to receive men from the paramilitary National Volunteers who were encouraged to join this "Irish Brigade" by Nationalist MP John Redmond. The division sailed to France in December 1915 and in April 1916, at Hulluch, faced one of the most concentrated gas attacks of the war, suffering some 1,980 casualties.

Back in Ireland, William Stopford Hunt retained possession of Dromdihy House until he sold the estate in 1923. The house and surrounding demesne of 90 acres was purchased by John O'Mahony. O'Mahony operated a manufacturing premises and timber business on the estate. By 1944 the house was no longer habitable and the roof was removed to avoid various property taxes. The O'Mahony family converted the estate stables into their comfortable home and continued to operate a dairy farm until they sold the property in the year 2000.

This article is the copyright of Tarquin Blake, Abandoned Ireland, and may not be reproduced in any form without permission.