EARL OF FINGALL'S INHERITANCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 83, 9 April 1910, Page 10

EARL OF FINGALL'S INHERITANCE.

How Lord Fingall i-eceived an unexpected legacy of £12,000 was related in the Nisi Prius Court, Dublin, on the 14th February, wnen Mr. Justice Wright admitted to probate the will of Joseph Fitzgerald Lynch, dated 20th February 1908. The career of the testator presented extraordinary features, observe* the Daily Mail. The action was brought by Lord Fingall, as executor, to have the will proved, and the defendants were Michael Palles Lynch, brother of the testator, and other relatives. Counsel for the defendants said he could not challenge the testator' s capacity. The testator obtained a commission in 1862 and spent three years on the Gold Coast as a- lieutenant. His health breaking down, he resigned his commission, became a member of the Jesuit Order, and was sent out to New I Orleans. After a few years it was discovered that he was not fitted for the life of a Jesuit. He left the order in 1876, and went back to the West Coast of Africa as Assistant Commissioner. He again contracted fever and resigned that appointment. The eldest brother, John Breen Lynch, left the property which formed the subject of thifi will to his brother the testator. This property now passed to Lord Fingall. The property in the gross waa worth £12,380. From the date of the will the testator lived on terms of close intimacy with his brother, Michael Palles Lynch, and spoke of him as a man who was to succeed him in the enjoyment of the property. When the will was opened;, however, it was found that everything that the testator possessed was bequeathed to Lord Fingall. Counsel said that he believed Lord Fingall, when he heard of the will, was heard to say : "Who is this man Lynch who has left me all his property?" In admitting the will to probate, Mr. Justice Wright said it was an extraordinary transaction. Lord Fingall, whose family name ia Plunkett, was born in 1859 and succeeded to the title in 1881, since when he has resided almost constantly on his Irish estates. He is the eleventh earl and twentieth baron of his line, a Roman Catholic, and one of the most popular of Irish Peers. He was born at Rome, a curious coincidence being thalt his two predecessors in the title were also born abroad — his father at Naples and his grandfather at Geneva. Lord Fingall served with tho Dublin Yeomanry in South " Africa. During Lord Dudley's Viceroyalty he was Master of the Horse, and he was State Steward to Earl Spencer. Killeen Castle, Lord Fingall's seat in County Meath, is one of the finest specimens of Anglo-Norman architecture extant in Ireland. It was built in 1161 by Hugh do Lacy, first Lord Palatine of Meath, and given, to hold for the Crown, to the Irish noble whose descendants own it to-day.