DROMORE, DIOCESE of. - In Ireland. The name derives from the Gaelic Drom-mór, meaning a great rock. It includes part of the counties of Down, Armagh, and Antrim. The bishop resides at Newry. The diocese was founded in the 6th century by St. Colman, its first bishop and patron; for some centuries, however, very few names of its bishops are known; it is therefore thought that during this period it was governed by Armagh.
The succession can be established from the 13th century onward. Towards the end of the 15th century, Giorgio Brann was bishop of D. He is said to have been a Greek born in Athens, later procurator in Rome of the hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia. He was transferred to the see of Elphin, also in Ireland. In the modern cathedral of Newry the « Christian Brothers » run a school on the very site of the Cistercian abbey founded in 1144 by St. Malachia, first archbishop of Armagh, then bishop of Down.
The diocese has an area of 1,650 sq. km.; it has approximately 100,000 inhabitants, of whom 41,807 are Catholics; it comprises 19 parishes with 42 churches, 75 diocesan priests and 5 regulars; a diocesan seminary, « St. Colman's College », at Newry; 3 male religious communities and 16 convents of women religious (1949). The diocese is suffragan to Armagh.