The High Court has ruled that a right of way granted in 1955 does not allow the owner of a Ballsbridge property to use the full length of a laneway behind Merrion Road houses. The court said the right runs between Shrewsbury Park and the plaintiff’s respective rear entrance.
Mr Justice Oisín Quinn gave judgment on 29 September 2023 in a dispute over a roughly 14-foot-wide laneway behind even-numbered houses from 116 to 124 Merrion Road. The plaintiff, Pamelia Smyth, owns Haylands, a house built in the back garden of 118 Merrion Road. The defendants, Laurence Fenelon and Lorraine Thornton, own 120 Merrion Road and the laneway.
Smyth argued that the deed gave her a right of way over the entire laneway, including the section beyond her rear entrance to the dead end behind 124. The defendants accepted that the deed granted a right of way, but argued it covered travel between Shrewsbury Park and her own rear entrance, not journeys beyond it and back.
The court considered the deed’s wording and map alongside the circumstances in which it was made. The 1955 deed recorded that the homeowners had threatened proceedings over access to their rear entrances after a roadway shown as proposed in earlier deeds had not been built. The grant allowed passage for purposes connected with the properties and described travel from Shrewsbury Park to the grantees’ “respective rere entrances”. The parties accepted that the wording should be read as “to and from” Shrewsbury Park.
Justice Quinn rejected the argument that the map’s yellow markings established a right over the whole laneway. The markings included a separate lane behind houses 102 to 114, which Smyth accepted she had no right to use. He also found that extending the right beyond her entrance would permit pointless journeys down a dead end and back. The court said the grant was to connect each property’s rear entrance with Shrewsbury Park, not to provide use of the entire laneway.
The judgment records that the defendants proposed to sell the laneway and part of their garden for a development planned to include eight townhouses. The developer was not a party to the case, and the court did not determine whether the proposed development would substantially interfere with the plaintiff’s right of way. No claim was made that the right had been abandoned or extinguished.
The court said Smyth’s claim for a declaration that her right extended over the entire length and width of the laneway must fail, and proposed to make an order dismissing it. The matter was to be listed for a hearing on costs; the judgment does not record a costs decision.