| American loses battle over Leinster
duke claim An intriguing transatlantic battle for Ireland’s
premier dukedom has been finally settled after decades of legal wrangling
over who should be the rightful Duke of Leinster.
The claim of Paul FitzGerald, a Californian builder, to be the ninth Duke
of Leinster has been dismissed by the Lord Chancellor despite a 30-year
campaign by his family, which has reputedly cost them £1.3million.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton said that the title, once regarded as the Irish
equivalent of royalty, will remain with Maurice FitzGerald, aged 59, from
Oxfordshire.
The attempt by Mr FitzGerald of San Francisco to claim the title had been masterminded by his aunt Theresa Caudhill
who claimed that she was acting on her father’s deathbed wishes.
In her evidence she argued that a switch of identities had led to her
father Desmond the rightful heir who settled in America being frozen out
of the family during the Great War.
However Lord Falconer appeared to accept the conventional version of the
family tree.
It suggests that when the fifth Duke died in 1893 the title was inherited
then by Maurice, his eldest who died unmarried.
His younger brother Edward a chronic gambler who was alleged to have
had an affair with Wallis Simpson succeeded him as the seventh Duke before
he committed suicide in 1976.
His son and Maurice’s father Gerald became the eighth Duke before
dying in 2004.
The Americans have vowed to continue their battle for the title. |
