Judge dismisses rugby club's case over sale of Foxrock playing pitches

High Court Reporters

A south Dublin rugby club has failed in its High Court challenge to the proposed €1 million sale of playing pitches by the local parish to a GAA club.

Judge Liam Kennedy this week threw out St Brigid’s RFC’s lawsuit over the five-acre site, which has been owned by Foxrock parish since 1959. The purchase was sanctioned by the then Archbishop of Dublin, Charles McQuaid.

Both St Brigid’s and Geraldine's P Moran’s GAA club – the proposed buyers of the site – have used the pitches for decades.

St Brigid’s had argued that the parish's proposed sale to Geraldines P Moran’s was unlawful, because the site had originally been acquired on trust for the children and young people of the parish.

This claim was denied by Foxrock parish and St Laurence O’Toole Diocesan Trust, an entity that holds properties of parishes in the Archdiocese of Dublin.

They sought to have the case struck out on the grounds that it was bound to fail.

In a judgment published this week, Kennedy said there was no evidential basis advanced for St Brigid's claim that the pitches were held on trust – rather, the claim was advanced based on “assertions, suppositions and hearsay”.

These claims were refuted by the parish’s evidence and contemporaneous documents from the time of the sale, the judge said.

The judge rejected the club’s claim that the trust arrangement arose because parishioners contributed significantly to the purchase of the site, and because of the purpose it was purchased for – that is, as a site for a parish hall, and a sports ground for the GAA club and other local clubs.

The judge said that in actuality, the site was purchased by the parish at its risk and expense.

A code of conduct, signed by clubs based at the playing pitches in 2013, expressly acknowledged the parish’s ownership and control of the site, the judge noted. The code demonstrated that St Brigid's and other clubs accepted this.

The terms of the code undermine the St Brigid's claim that the field was subject to a trust established on the purchase of the site in 1959 for the benefit of the children and young people of the parish, the judge said.

“I am satisfied that the claim that the field became the subject of a charitable trust on its acquisition in 1959 has no reasonable prospect of success and is bound to fail,” the judge said.

It followed that there is no legal impediment to the disposal of the field, the judge concluded.