Dunne v Duignan

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Barton, J.
• Judgment Date: 17 February 1908
• Court: Chancery Division (Ireland)
• Docket Number: (1907. No. 87.)
• Date: 17 February 1908

Dunne

and

Duignan.

Barton, J.

(1907. No. 87.)

CASES

DETERMINED BY

THE CHANCERY DIVISION

OF

THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND,

AND BY

THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION,

AND ON APPEAL THEREFROM IN

THE COURT OF APPEAL.

1908.

Will — Charity — Gift to — Charitable purposes — Foreign missions — Validity of gift.

Held, that the direction that the fund should be expended in charities in Ireland and in foreign missions constituted a valid charitable bequest.

Scott v. Brownrigg (9 L. R. Ir. 246) distinguished.

Action.

By his will, dated 9th February, 1901, Edward Duignan, late of Ballasport, Hill of Down, in the County of Meath, among other devises and bequests, bequeathed the sum of £100 to the parish priest and curate of Killion, for masses for the repose of his soul, and after directing that after the payment of his debts, funeral and testamentary expenses and legacies, certain stocks, shares, and moneys, should be invested by his executors, and that out of the interest or dividends accruing from such investments his executors should pay £5 a year to his sister, Elizabeth Heavy, one of the defendants, and should pay the balance of such interest or dividends to his sisters, Catherine and Mary, the other defendants, during their lives, and the life of the survivor, and after the death of the survivor of his three sisters, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary, the testator gave the following further direction:— “All the said money which shall be so invested by said executors as aforesaid, shall be expended by my said executors in such charities in Ireland, and in such foreign missions, as my said executors shall in their absolute discretion think fit.”

The testator died on 26th March, 1905; and probate was granted on 3rd May, 1906, to the executors, the plaintiffs in this action.

The principal question arising in this action was, whether the gift in favour of charities in Ireland and foreign missions constituted a good charitable gift, or whether it was void for uncertainty.

Parol evidence was offered as to the meaning which the expression “foreign missions” bears in the Roman Catholic Church; and the Rev. Father Finlay, S.J., gave evidence on this point. His evidence is referred to in the judgment of Barton, J.

Ignatius O'Brien, K.C., and Denning, for the plaintiffs.

Serjeant O'Connor, K.C., and Dudley White, for the Attorney-General:—

Religious purposes, unless restrained by context, are charitable in Ireland. As pointed out by the Master of the Rolls, in...