Lissadell House

An entrance front is on the north with a three-bay pedimented central projection, originally open to east and west to form porte-cochere.

[2] The house is on the south shore of Maugherow Peninsula in northern County Sligo overlooking Drumcliff Bay.

[4] The estate was formed from land granted in the early 17th century to the Elizabethan soldier Sir Paul Gore for his services to the English crown during the Nine Years' War.

This controversy centred around the sacking of Gabrielle Gore-Booth by the then Solicitor General amid allegations of mismanagement of the estate, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the heir Michael was made a ward of court.

Calls for a public inquiry were followed by an investigation by RTÉ’s current affairs programme Seven Days, re-examining the claim in respect of the timber, which had been dismissed as ‘absurd’.

Judgment was delivered in April 1965 by Justice Davitt who summed up by saying "Neither Gabrielle or her mother or sister have any legal rights whatever to any say in the matter as to how Lissadell is to be managed.

They have been allowed to remain there because of the belief that if Sir Michael Gore-Booth were under no disability it would be his wish permanently to extend the hospitality of his home to his mother and sisters.

A consortium was set up consisting of businessmen and politicians to buy the house in trust for the state;[10] however, the house was eventually sold to a private couple, the prominent Dublin barristers Edward Walsh and Constance Cassidy, who began to restrict access through the estate shortly after, citing privacy and safety concerns.

Today the Avenue is a favourite haunt of picnic and bathing parties but this is not a recent idea; the people of Sligo have been able to use this area for recreation since the beginning of this century.".

[19] In order to infer whether a dedication existed, the case focussed on the erection and subsequent removal of a barrier in 1993 by Sir Josslyn, apparently to keep out New Age Travellers.

The High Court judge (McMahon J) decided on the fact that no objection was made by Sir Josslyn to its subsequent removal by locals, that this showed that he regarded the rights of way as belonging to the public.

They claimed that Justice McMahon had "made a fundamental error" in his ruling arguing that he "had erred in converting evidence about use since the 1950s of four routes in the 410-acre estate into an effective presumption about, and significant extension of, the law governing rights of way".

This time the 1993 incident was interpreted to imply that Sir Josslyn saw the avenue as his to block and only relented in the interest of public relations.

The Supreme Court issued a 117-page judgement on 11 November 2013 that ruled in favour of the owners, excepting a public right of access along the beach.

[14] The Supreme court ruling has been criticised by advocates of open access[26] to the countryside, including Mountaineering Ireland for "setting the bar too high", effectively making it impossible to assert right of way through long use, instead requiring dedication by the landowner, a position abandoned in most European jurisdictions, including England, as too onerous a proof.