Drumbanagher House (also known as ''Drumbanagher Castle'' and ''Closes Castle''), near

Poyntzpass Poyntzpass ( Irish: ''Pas Phoyntz'' or ''Pas an Phointe'') is a small village on the border between southern County Armagh and County Down in Northern Ireland. It is situated in the civil parish of Ballymore and the historic barony of Orior Low ...

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of an ...

, was a large country house in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

designed for Maxwell Close by

William Notman William Notman (8 March 1826 – 25 November 1891) was a Scottish-Canadian photographer and businessman. The Notman House in Montreal was his home from 1876 until his death in 1891, and it has since been named after him. Biography Notman ...

, working under

William Playfair William Playfair (22 September 1759 – 11 February 1823), a Scottish engineer and political economist, served as a secret agent on behalf of Great Britain during its war with France. The founder of graphical methods of statistics, Playfai ...

in 1829, being "one of his grandest country houses."Castles in County Armagh
/ref> Following occupation by the American and British armies during

World War Two World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Drumbanagher was demolished by its owner in 1951 due to the expense in up keeping the property; the estate remains in the possession of the Close family. Writing in the

Belfast Telegraph The ''Belfast Telegraph'' is a daily newspaper published in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by Independent News & Media. Its editor is Eoin Brannigan. Reflecting its unionist tradition, the paper has historically been "favoured by the Protestant po ...

in 1962 the then owner said;

"No mortal could have afforded to keep the castle going. So I had it demolished.
Death duties An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an ...
, upkeep and financial difficulties meant I just had to get rid of it...It was perfectly sound and in good order when it was demolished...Now it looks like a
nuclear bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
hit it."

Today, all that remains of the house is the "vast arched porte-cochere" (Bence-Jones), which

Sir Charles Brett Sir Charles Edward Bainbridge Brett, KBE, CBE (30 October 1928 - 19 December 2005), was a Northern Irish solicitor, journalist, author and founding member, and first chairman, of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (UAHS). He was known t ...

described as "resembling a Roman

Arc de Triomphe The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (, , ; ) is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Place de l'Étoile—the ''étoile'' ...

References

Castles in County Armagh {{NorthernIreland-castle-stub