LEFT £1,000,000.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 33, 9 February 1939, Page 9

LEFT £1,000,000.

BUT NO WILL.

SEARCH FOR NEXT-OF-KIN.

OLD PEOPIX'B DREAMS.

(Special.—By Air Mall.) ' DIBLIX, January IH. , In four little cabins in the West of ' Ireland four old people are nursiiijr , dreams that really only come when the , leprechauns uncover their pot of gold and the wee folk gather round. i They have been in touch with lawyer*, from America. Old Franei* O'Dea. of Loe Angeles—but 00 years previously of the West -has died and loft well over £1,000,000 —without a will. The law has decided tliut the liext-of-kin should inherit it. and when America had been scoured in vain. Judjre .Tames P. B. Duffy, of Koc.hester, New York, and two lawyers, Mr. William Himrod and Mr. Files, went to Ireland to search. Irish lawyers liad meanwhile reduced the number of claimants there from hundreds to r>o. The Americans picked out six. In the end there emerged four claimants whose rights seemed substantial: Mrs. Bridget Woulfe, Mrs. Mary McCarthy, ( James Lynch, James O'Dea. The youngest of these is 7f*. "It has been fascinating but intensely difficult work," Judge Duffy told a reporter. '•Documents Mere completely absent. Xoi f these old folk had birth certificate* or baptismal documents. "Very Definite Claims." "But I feel that the four people we examined finally have very definite claim* on the fortune.

'Three of them are descended —if our 1 evidence is right —from sisters of the * late Mr. O'Dea's mother. The last is a descendant from Mr. O'Dea's father's side of the family. He. .lames O'Dea, is a very old man. but no amount of cross-examination could shake him — though he had not seen some of the .people about whom we had to ask him. he knew exactly who they were and could give an account of their lives. I "1 think we have come to the right ;conclusions, and it is for us to recom- t mend our claimants to the court in Los Angeles, which will decide which shall receive the £1.000.000. "The fact that these folk are so advanced in years and live as they do in the wildest parts of Ireland does not affect their claims, but the court may decide to include some younger ' relttives." c The judge paused and smiled. "It i has been a fascinating task, and', iit has felt unreal to a man with] I Irish blood like mine, because it| is one of those stories that only comes : into our lives when we read books."