Buckley and Others v Attorney General and Power

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1950
• Date: 01 January 1950
• Court: High Court

Buckley and Others

and

Attorney General and Power

- Internal re-organization - Procedure - Rules of club not complied with - Reorganization effected by portion only of general body of members -Notice not given to remaining members - Reorganized body set up - Whether entitled as lawful successor to property and assets of original club.

In the year 1905, an unincorporated voluntary association known as "Sinn Fein" was established in the city of Dublin for the purpose of advocating certain political ideals, including the fostering of native Irish industry and culture and the setting up of a local legislature and government for Ireland, monarchial in form but independent of the legislature and government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as then established. In the year 1917, the association became amalgamated with a number of groups of persons having somewhat similar aims and a joint body was formed, also bearing the name "Sinn Fein," which numbered among its principles and objects those of establishing a political State, republican in from and comprising the whole of Ireland, with a legislature and government independent of the Crown, and the securing of international recognition of the proposed State as a sovereign republic. The association consisted of a large number of local clubs known as cumainn, together with a central administration and executive through which each club was formally affiliated to the parent association. The funds of the association were held by two honorary treasurers, and consisted largely of certain fees payable by the clubs on becoming affiliated. At the beginning of the year 1922, some 1,485 cumainn were affiliated, but later in that year, in consequence of certain political developments and of the state of disorder and lawlessness existing in many parts of the country, its active membership fell away and the organization suffered almost complete disruption though in a very small measure its work was carried on by means of a committee with delegated powers. In the year 1923, a number of members and former members of the association, sharing certain views as to the desirability of the organization continuing to advocate republican principles, met and set up from among their number an organising committee, charged with the duty of restoring the association to full activity and this committee thereupon sought to obtain the support of such of...