Dan Gildea: Wants shed
FAMILY members have taken each other to court in a bitter land dispute over a farm left in a contested will.
There are a total of four separate claims to the land left by the late farmer William John Kennedy of Correnagh, five kilometres outside Letterkenny.
Mr Kennedy died in 2007 aged 92 and left part of his farm to his niece Ms Nora Kelly and the other part to his nephew Jack Gildea.
Ms Kelly, a nurse, had looked after the late Mr Kennedy for 10 years before his death.
However Ms Kelly’s mother, Nora Gildea, 89, and two brothers Daniel and Christopher are now claiming various parts of the land.
At Donegal Circuit Civil Court sitting in Letterkenny yesterday, Ms Kelly sought to establish ownership of the three pieces of land which are registered in her name.
In a counter claim Ms Kelly is being sued for ownership for two pieces of land and a house by her mother, Mrs Nora Gildea.
Christopher Gildea is seeking ownership of all the land left to his sister Nora Kelly while his brother Daniel is looking for ownership of a shed and some land around the shed.
Daniel Gildea is claiming rights to the shed and land he claims he has worked on for more than 20 years.
Ms Kelly told how her family had been subjected her to a “hellish” campaign of intimidation since she received three folios of property in the will.
Ms Kelly said her lands were blocked and that her brothers would walk behind her and intimidate her.
She claimed she was forced to call Gardai in 2009 when her nephew Trevor had held a party in her late uncle’s house and eventually an injunction against Chris and Dan Gildea and their families was granted last year after a number of other incidents, said Mrs Kelly in her evidence.
Chris Gildea: Wants all the lands left to his sister
The incidents included blocking access to her land by abandoned cars.
On another occasion her mother had arrived with another man and had put horses into her field.
She revealed she has received 27 sessions with a psychologist.
“I was ready to crack up,” she said.
In evidence yesterday Dan Gildea said William Kennedy allowed him to use a shed on his land in 1989 and moved into a mobile home while building a home close-by.
He is now claiming ownership of the shed and the land around it.
Barrister for Ms Kelly, Peter Nolan, claimed that scrap cars were put on the land after 2011 in a bid to make it look like they had been there for years.
Dan Gildea’s sister Carmel McMonagle, Ann Molloy and Maura Brown all claimed their brother had worked on cars in the shed and around it for up to 20 years.
The court heard that both opposing family sides had placed cameras on their plots of land to film each other.
Dan Gildea’s son John told the court that the Kellys had made his and his family’s life hell.
He also claimed Mrs Kelly’s husband Paudge had invited him to the lane to fight on two occasions.
“We couldn’t even go outside our front door without a camera being stuck in our face,” he said.
Jack Gildea, (67), told the court that he was executor of the will of his uncle William.
He told Mr Nolan he ‘just didn’t know’ why his two brothers and his mother were suing his sister Nora and not him.
He said that when he told his family of the details of the will around 2009 “they shook my hand.”
He also described his uncle as being ‘mad about horses’ and he allowed anyone who wanted to use his land to do so.
His uncle had been kicked by a horse in 1998 and his sister Nora had cared for him from then until his death in 2007 at the age of 92, he told Judge Mary Faherty.
The judge asked him who had use of the disputed shed before 1989 when Dan Gildea had moved a mobile home onto adjacent land in order to start building a house there.
“Willie John used it for cattle,” said Jack Gildea.
The case, which is expected to hear evidence from Mrs Nora Gildea and Mr Christopher Gildea today, continues before Judge Faherty.