{"id":519049,"date":"2026-06-26T07:01:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/519049\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T07:01:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:01:18","slug":"uncle-may-have-had-dementia-longer-than-thought-court-told-in-e3m-farm-inheritance-case-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/519049\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncle may have had dementia longer than thought, court told in \u20ac3m farm inheritance case \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Documents provided to lawyers for a man who says he was wrongfully disinherited from his late uncle\u2019s \u20ac3 million farm appear to show his uncle\u2019s vascular dementia was raised as far back as 2007, not 10 years ago as first thought, the High Court<\/a> heard.<\/p>\n

Bachelor farmer Thomas Doherty (93) had promised his nephew, Damien Quane, that his 58-hectare holding at Home Farm, Elton, Knocklong, Co Limerick<\/a>, would go to him when he died, it is claimed. Quane, it is claimed, worked his uncle\u2019s farm from an early age and particularly after his uncle had a heart bypass in 1999.<\/p>\n

His uncle made four previous wills between 1997 and 2007 making that bequest. But he revoked those wills in 2013 and left the land to another nephew.<\/p>\n

It is claimed in proceedings by Quane, seeking to stop the sale of the land by the executor of the estate, that the last will was made under undue influence from the deceased\u2019s priest brother, Fr Patrick Doherty.<\/p>\n

Doherty had returned permanently to Home Farm in 1993 from Wisconsin, US<\/a>, which the family discovered had followed allegations of improper behaviour by the priest with young men and over his alcoholism. <\/p>\n

Doherty, who died in 2025, a year after Thomas, had continued his behaviour here and had young men staying at the Home Farm house for extended periods in the presence of Thomas, it is claimed.<\/p>\n

By 2015, Thomas was admitted to a nursing home suffering from dementia.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Quane, of Rathany, Hospital, Co Limerick, was granted an interim injunction against Larry O\u2019Brien, the executor of the deceased\u2019s estate, from taking any steps to sell the land.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, when the case returned to court, David Sutton, counsel for Quane said there was information in documents sent to them by the defendant\u2019s lawyers appearing to show that Thomas\u2019 vascular dementia had been raised as far back as 2007.<\/p>\n

There had been a huge number of medical records provided which may be relevant to the case and his side needed time to reply, Sutton said.<\/p>\n

Counsel for the defendant said Quane could have issued the proceedings back in 2024, following Thomas\u2019 death, particularly as two caveats had been entered to the will. But he chose to do so now with the auction to sell the land due to take place next Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Judge Brian Cregan said what triggered the proceedings was the erecting of a \u201cfor sale\u201d sign on the land. The delay point was important but the case must proceed and there was an interim injunction in place restraining the sale, he said.<\/p>\n

He put the matter in again for July 9th with a view to getting a hearing date before the court\u2019s summer vacation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Documents provided to lawyers for a man who says he was wrongfully disinherited from his late uncle\u2019s \u20ac3…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[73,61,60,1396,43,115],"class_list":["post-519049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick","tag-news","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}