DUKE'S HERITAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18787, 14 February 1923, Page 7

DUKE'S HERITAGE

RE-PURCHASE DESIRED. COMPANY FORMED. LONDON, January £6. “Esau, Lid,.” is suggested as an alternative name for the company which is being formed under the title of “Duke of Leinster, Ltd.,” with the object of repurchasing the heritage which the duke, sold for £60,000 to Sir Harry Mallahy-Deeley, who is demanding the full £400,000 agreed upon as the reversionary price as the condition of handing oxer the property. The directors hope to obtain a reduction. The chairman explains that the nominal capital is £IOO, but adds: “We have adequate funds behind us and shall not appeal to the public.” This decision makes valueless the plan humorously put forward by a London writer that the duke slymld appear in a revival of “The Gondoliers” in the role of the Duke of Plaza Toro The Duke of Leinster is at present in iho United States arranging to cross the Allan tic in a ketch. Tiie Duke of Leinster is known as the “Daredevil Duke,” and last year one of his exploits consisted of a non-stop dash in a motor oar from London to Birmingham for a wager. lie also accepted a challenge last year to race across the Atlantic in 25-ton yachts against an American journalist, Mr William Nutloy. The duke is the premier peer of Ireland, and offered his services to the Froo State. He was recently gazetted 1 a general. When the duke disposed of his heritage two lives stood, between him and the dukedom, his eldest brother, the sixth duke, who died Inst year at the age of 35, and another brother, who was killed in the war. hoinster is an Irish title, borne since 1766 by the family of Fitzgerald. Robert, the nineteenth carl, was a. politician of the eighteenth century, and his son was made viscount in 1747, and a duke, the first of that title in the Irish peerage, in 1766.