For an excellent and very comprehensive account of the family and house, see Helen Delahunty’s “The Innes Family of Dromantine” in BIF Vol 11, 2012.
Dromantine is at the heart of the large expanse of land in Co Down once owned by the Magennis clan, adjacent to the lands of the O’Hanlons in Co Armagh, on the other side of the Glan Bog. At the time of the Plantation, James I ‘gave’ the land to the Magennises, who had remained loyal to the English Crown. At that time Dromantine was known as Glyn Wood.
William Innes (ca.1720-1785)
By 1736, Dromantine estate consisted of seven townlands—Dromantine, Ballylaugh, Lurganare, Corgary, Ballilogh, Carrickrovaddy and Drimiler—owned by Art Magennis. Art also owned the Castlewellan estate, and was deeply in debt, having heavily mortgaged both properties. Dromantine had to be sold.
It was bought for the young William Innes (no relation) by the executors of his childless uncle, Joseph Innes, a Belfast merchant and shipbuilder. Their ancestors had been Scottish planters in the 1600s.
William married Dorothea Brice in 1744. They had two sons, Arthur and Charles.
The legacy of Art Magennis’s debts weighed heavily on Dromantine estate until the end of the 1700s.
Arthur Innes (1750-1814)
Arthur Innes (ca.1800-1835)
Arthur Innes inherited the estate in 1814. He later demolished the old manor house of Glyn (or Glen) Wood, built an elaborate Georgian house, changed the name to Dromantine House, and created the lake and most of the stables, gardens, walks and avenues that we know today. Arthur’s dark side was in evidence during this process – in enlarging his demesne, he evicted all the tenants that lived inside it without compensation and demolished their houses.
In May 1829, Arthur married Mary Jervis Wolseley, daughter of Admiral William Wolseley of Rostrevor.
Arthur was appointed High Sherrif of Co Down in 1830, and again in 1832.
In 1830 he published adverts in local papers warning that anyone caught poaching on his land would be prosecuted. He appears to have posted such warnings regularly over the next few years.
In April 1834, one Michael Maginness was found guilty of stealing Arthur’s great-coat – the sentence was seven years’ transportation!
Arthur died in 1834 and in August 1835 his horses, carriages and saddlery were auctioned. In February 1837, all of the Dromantine estate’s crops, animals and farming implements were sold at auction. WHY?
Arthur Charles Innes-Cross (1834-1902)
Arthur was born in Southampton in 1834 and educated at Eton.
His father died when he was an infant, and the estate was run by Mary, his formidable mother, until he attained his majority in 1855.
In June that year, he was guest of honour at a dinner for 130 arranged by his tenants in David Woods’ home, Four-Mile House. A month later, a fire broke out in his stables and destroyed the entire range.
In June 1858 he was appointed a JP. He also joined the North-East Agricultural Association.
In July 1858, he married Louisa Letitia Henrietta Brabazon from Dartan, Co Armagh, and the same year he set about substantially remodelling Dromantine House in the Italian Renaissance style. The architect was John McCurdy of Dublin.
The family travelled abroad a lot, especially to France. In August 1858, the Innes family was reported as travelling through Newry, en route to Paris, where they were expected to stay until the new Dromantine House was completed. In 1871 Arthur wrote to Newry Reporter from Pau (near Lourdes) “… on my arrival here from Cannes”. They were still abroad in January 1872.
In …. Arthur was listed as one of the investors in the proposed Downpatrick and Newry Junction Railway.
In 1862, he donated land for the building of Glen Chapel.
He was appointed High Sherrif of Co Down in 1864. In July 1865, after Peter Quinn’s decision not to stand for parliament again, he was elected as Conservative MP for Newry and served until 1868.
The family had another home named ‘The Anchorage’ in Church Street, Rostrevor. The name suggests that it may have been the Home of Admiral Wolseley, Arthur’s maternal grandfather.
In 1872, he was President of the Newry Union Farming Society.
In May 1877, the Belfast News-Letter reported that two emus, presented to Inness eight years earlier, and kept with the deer in the park at Dromantine, had finally hatched two healthy chicks, having made their nest in the middle of a gorse clump!
His wife Louisa died at Dromantine House in January 1886, aged just 48.
In November 1886, Innes’ tenants met at Donaghmore Courthouse and demanded a reduction in their rents. Innes refused, stating that he had more than done his duty when he reduced rents by 10% the previous year. In the end, they got their way, and Innes reduced rents by 10% for a second year, and for several subsequent years.
18 months after the death of Louisa, he married Sarah Jane Beauchamp Cross, a widow, and changed his surname to Innes-Cross.
He died at Dromantine on 14th April 1902.
Arthur Charles Wolseley Innes-Cross (1888-1940)
Arthur Charles Jnr. inherited the Dromantine estate in 1902, aged just 13. In line with the major changes in land ownership at the beginning of the twentieth century, most of the Dromantine estate was sold to its tenants about 1908.
Arthur was deputy master of the Newry hunt but resigned in 1911.
He married Etta Maud Bradshaw in London in January 1915.
He was awarded the Military Cross during WW1.
The contents of Dromantine ‘Castle’ were auctioned on 17th May 1921 on the instructions of Capt. Innes-Cross. Because of the provisions of his father’s will, he had to get approval from the Chancery Division of the High Court in March. In the hearing, he stated that living in Dromantine was too expensive, and that he and his family wanted to move to France.
The advert for the auction also mentioned that the house and demesne were also for sale, by private treaty. On 23rd February 1923, Dromantine House and demesne was bought by Arthur Griffith of Co. Westmeath for £4,000 and on 29th September 1926, it formally opened as the Theological College of the Roman Catholic Society Of The African Mission, moving from its former location in Co Cork.