Irish will of US-based priest approved by the High Court

The High Court has approved the Irish will of a late US-based priest after a subsequent American will raised an issue about whether his Irish property had been left to his two cousins.

The priest was attached to an Archdiocese in the US before his death and owned 40 acres of farmland in Ireland, which he left to two of his cousins in a 2001 Irish will.

However, when he made a US will in 2017 for his American property, it included a revocation clause which did not mention the Irish land and was not intended to revoke the 2001 Irish will, the cousins argued.

The priest died in 2019, aged in his 70s, after suffering a heart attack.

The cousins brought a High Court application, with the American lawyer who drew up the US will as respondent, seeking to have the Irish will declared valid.

The court heard the priest made the Irish will in August 2001 and appointed three members of the cousins’ family as executors. The cousins looked after the priest’s land, and it was intended it would go…