The Donegal pensioner, the English lord and a battle over a boathouse
Dispute over a crumbling pier on remote inlet pits local man against Baron
THIS is the pier and boathouse at the centre of a squatter’s rights legal battle between an English Lord and a Donegal pensioner.
Lord Rayleigh, a titled landlord from Chelmsford in Essex, launched legal proceedings at the Circuit Court in Letterkenny last month to gain access to the pier and boathouse.
The 55-year-old, listed as John Gerald Strutt in proceedings, is in dispute with Carrigart man Jack Green over the build-
‘Had constant use for several decades’
ing and pier on Mulroy Bay, Co. Donegal.
Mr Green is suing for adverse possession of the property, claiming he has had continued use of the pier and boathouse for several decades.
Adverse possession is a legal term more commonly described as ‘squatter rights’.
When contacted Mr Green did not wish to comment but locals in Carrigart told the Irish Mail on Sunday he is very involved in the community and well-liked by his neighbours.
He was a talented boxer and ran a club for children in the town for a number of years.
One man, who asked not to be named, said: ‘We’re all very surprised by this. I can’t believe that the lord is trying to chuck someone out after so many years.’
The Lord Rayleigh, the Sixth Baron of Rayleigh, inherited the extensive estate of Lord Leitrim.
He comes from a long line of wealthy and influential Essex farmers and property owners. He has two older sisters, Lady Anne Caroline Jenkin, the Baroness of Kennington, and Mary Jean Strutt.
Lady Jenkin is a PR consultant and Conservative member of the House of Lords. In 2014 she caused controversy by suggesting that the rise of hunger and food banks in Britain was because ‘poor people don’t know how to cook’.
She later apologised for her remark and said that what she had meant to say was that modern society had lost the ability to cook.
Lord Rayleigh’s grandfather, Robert Strutt, the Fourth Baron Rayleigh, was a prominent physicist who discovered ‘active nitrogen’ and was the first person to distinguish the glow of the night sky.
His great-grandfather, John Strutt, the Third Baron Rayleigh, was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. The present baron’s family run a vast agriculture empire with more than 22,500 acres in Essex and Suffolk, producing huge quantities of wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, peas and sugar beet.
He attended the exclusive boarding school Eton and the Royal Agriculture University. He also reached the rank of Lieutenant in the Welsh Guards before retiring from the British army.
Lord Rayleigh earned the title of ‘Sixth Baron of Rayleigh of Terling Place’ in 1991.
His home, Terling Place, is a sprawling listed Georgian mansion in the Essex countryside surrounded by 110 hectares of woodland and gardens.
However, it is a long way away from Mulroy Bay, which is a marine inlet that opens into Broad Water Bay north of Milford in Co. Donegal.
At the recent short hearing in Letterkenny Circuit Court, barrister for Mr Green, Peter Nolan, said the proceedings had an added motion where his client was also seeking a right of way to the pier.
Declan McHugh, barrister for Lord Rayleigh, told Judge John Hannan that the case could not go ahead because of the time required to hear the case.
He said: ‘It will take at least two days and possibly a third day and because witnesses are travelling from outside the country I would ask that the case be prioritised.’
Both parties agreed the case should be heard at the County Registrar’s Motions Court at the earliest opportunity. Judge Hannan agreed to prioritise the hearing but a date was not set.
Attempts to contact Lord Rayleigh for comment were unsuccessful.
Inherited estate of Lord Leitrim