A long running dispute over fishing rights in Co Mayo was yesterday drawing to a close in the High Court in Dublin before Mr Justice Keane.
On the first day of the Whit vacation the normally forsaken Four Courts was busy with Co Mayo people who followed their advocates to the capital for the day long final legal submissions by counsel in a dispute over fishing rights on the River Moy.
Patrick, Peter, Catherine and Niamh Gannon, trading as Beal Easa Fishery, claim to be successors in title of the late Mr Arthur Rashleigh who owned lands at Shragh, near Foxford, and his fishing rights on the Moy.
In one of his final judgments before his tragic death last year, Circuit Court Judge John Cassidy held against the Gannons and their claim for the fishing rights and in favour of 17 Foxford farmer defendants.
Judge Cassidy's decision was appealed to the High Court and Mr Justice Keane, who heard evidence for nine days in Castlebar, was yesterday hearing the closing legal submissions of Mr Marcus Daly SC, for the Gannons.
The court heard that the lands and fishing rights had been owned by Mr Rashleigh, an absentee landlord, and in 1907 they were sold by him to the Congested Districts Board, the predecessor of the Land Commission.
Mr Rashleigh reserved to himself the fishing rights on the Moy and the High Court has been asked to decide whether he reserved the fishing rights for himself, his heirs and successors, or simply for himself during his lifetime.
Mr Justice Keane, in the event of deciding that Mr Rashleigh's fishing rights did succeed him, has also been asked to determine whether the Gannons are now entitled to them.
He has heard that the Gannons, at the time the action was started, were lessees of Sir James Michael Langhan, of Enniskillen, who claimed to be then the current owner of the fishing rights. The plaintiffs also have sought to establish that they have a right to cross a local farmer's adjoining lands to reach and fish the river.
Sixteen of the defendant farmers are represented by Mr Harry Whelehan SC, while the remaining defendant is represented by Mr Conor Fahy BL, instructed by Burke, Ewing and Loftus, solicitors, Ballina.
They have argued that the Gannons have no rights to the fishery and have submitted that, in the event of the court declaring they have such rights, the court should define to what extent access to, and use of, their lands and the river may be limited.