Revenue Commissioners v Kirkhope Shaw

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice McWilliam
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1982
• Neutral Citation: 1977 WJSC-HC 1332
• Docket Number: No. 9 P./1973
• Court: High Court
• Date: 01 January 1982

1977 WJSC-HC 1332

THE HIGH COURT

REVENUE

No. 9 P./1973

REVENUE COMMISSIONERS v. SHAW

BAR

THE REVENUE COMMISSIONERS

-v-

ISABELLA KIRKHOPE SHAW

and

LINDSAY MORTON TALBOT-CROSBIE

1 Judgment of Mr. Justice McWilliamdelivered the 20th day of April 1977.

2 In these proceedings the Plaintiffs claim that Edward Wynne Talbot-Crosbie (hereinafter described as the Deceased) was at the date of his death on the 17th day of March, 1967, domiciled in the Republic of Ireland. The Defendants claim that he was domiciled in Scotland.

3 The Deceased was born at Putney in England on 30th August, 1874. He died at Connagh, Co. Dublin, near Bray, CO. Wicklow.

4 The father of the Deceased, Lindsay Bertie Talbot Crosbie, was born at Ardfert Abbey in Co. Kerry where the family had owned a substantial property for many generations and, although he served in the British Navy for a time and lived in Scotland for a time and died in a nursing home in London, it is accepted that his domicile at the time of the birth of the Deceased was Irish.

5 Accordingly, although the Deceased was born in London, his domicile of origin was also Irish.

6 It appears that, in or about 1877, the family went to live in Scotland and that the Deceased and his brothers were educated there and obtained their qualifications for their respective jobs there. The Deceased's father returned with his wife to Ardfert in 1901 and remained there until very shortly before his death in a London nursing home in 1913. His wife remained at Ardfert until 1919 when she moved to Chester owing to the disturbances in Ireland. One of her sons had died from tuberculosis in 1916 and had been buried in Wales and she was buried in the same place.

7 The Deceased entered the building trade in Scotland and also engaged in "factoring" for which he served a short apprenticeship. Factoring would appear, from the evidence of the Scottish witnesses, to have included land agency work, insurance agency work and dealing in property. After the death of his father, the Deceased became entitled to the Ardfert property subject to his mother's life estate and appears to have accepted the responsibility of managing it and visited it fairlyregularly.

8 In 1922 Ardfert Abbey was burned and the Deceased obtained compensation on the usual terms of rebuilding but he obtained permission to expend the money on building in Dublin and he appears to have engaged actively in this business until 1929 or 1930 when he also discontinued his building business in Scotland and dismissed all hisstaff there except his secretary, the first-named Defendant, whom he retained in his employment in Scotland until his death. In addition to what must have become comparatively slight secretarial duties, she also assisted in looking after the Deceased's invalid sister, Linda, for whom the Deceased had bought a house at Largs. A couple of years after the death of his sister in 1953, the Deceased sold the house at Largs and bought a house at 107, Danes Drive, Glasgow to which his secretary and her mother moved and in which the Deceased used one of the rooms as an office for his remaining business affairs.

9 Although apparently in good circumstances, the Deceased never purchased a dwellinghouse for his own use in Scotland but lived in a variety of "rooms" of one sort or another.

10 He married in 1927 and lived with his wife in her house at Woodlands Terrace, Galsgow, until 1935 when they came to Ireland to reside at Haldane Grange, Killiney, which had been given to the Deceased on the death of an aunt. About ten years later the Deceased and his wife separated and his wife returned to Scotland where she died in 1953.

11 In 1948 the Deceased sold Haldane Grange but continued to live in the area and, in the year 1954, purchased a house known as Old Conagh Cottage near Bray and resided there until the date of his death.

12 Until a couple of years before his death, the Deceased paid an annual visit to Scotland in the Summer which probably lasted about a month or six weeks. While there, he attended to his diminishing business interests, visited his solicitors, accountants and stockbrokers, and renewed his acquaintanceship with his remaining friends and relatives over there. He appears to have conducted all his business affairs through his Scottish lawyers, accountants and stockbrokers and he even sent all his correspondence in manuscript to his secretary in Scotland to be typed and dealt with by her there. Possibly this can be explained by a desire to Justify her employment as secretary.

13 It is quite clear that the Deceased was very much attached to Ireland and very proud of his family and its background and achievements. During the last thirty years of his life he took an active part in the local church and charitable affairs. Although he had been brought up in Scotland and was clearly also very much attached to Scotland, he had, throughout his long life, at all times maintained his association with Ardfert and Ireland. In an executor's oath sworn at the time of his father's death, although then working in Scotland, he described himself as of Ardfert Abbey. As this was an oath for an Irish grant...