A family of four have claimed in the High Court that their late father bigamously married a woman while still married to their mother and unlawfully transferred his €3.5 million Galway city pub into her name.
Mr Justice Michael Peart was told yesterday that Hollywood's Pub in Forster Street, Galway, was currently up for sale by the alleged bigamous wife, Ms Philomena Hollywood.
Mr Mark de Blacam SC, for Kathleen, Thomas, Carmel and Theresa Hollywood, said his clients, who claim to be the only living next of kin of the late Peter Thomas Hollywood, had agreed the sale could go ahead on the basis that the proceeds would be frozen until the High Court determined the rightful owners.
Mr de Blacam said the family undertook not to do anything to frustrate the closing of the sale on September 9th.
Ms Kathleen Hollywood, in an affidavit, said that in addition to a declaration that they were the rightful heirs to the pub, they would be seeking to set aside a purported transfer of the premises to Ms Philomena Hollywood in November 1976.
She said her father had been born in Newry, Co Down, in 1942 and had four children by his marriage in November 1962 to Mary Theresa Connelly.
Her father had died in December 2001. He had been predeceased by their mother in December 1996. Ms Hollywood said a search revealed her parents had never divorced. They had lived in New York throughout the 1960s and 1970s where her father had owned two pubs.
She said her parents had separated and her father had started a relationship with Ms Philomena Casserley, whom he purported to marry in a recorded marriage ceremony in England in September 1975, while his wife was still alive.
It was about this time he sold his pubs in New York and bought the Galway pub. At this time her mother was attempting to raise their four young children on her own in England without assistance from her husband.
"It now transpires that Peter Thomas Hollywood, in an effort to remove any assets from the reach of his lawful wife, purported to transfer his asset, the Galway pub, to Philomena Hollywood," she said.
Ms Hollywood said a search revealed there had been no consideration paid by Ms Philomena Hollywood to her father for the transfer of the pub which was now valued at more than €3.5 million. She said this purported transfer was unlawful and unenforceable. She, her brother, and two sisters were his next of kin and administrators to the estate of their father.
Peter Thomas Hollywood had committed bigamy as he had never obtained a divorce and remained married to her mother up to her death in 1996.
Ms Hollywood said it was her mother's intention to pursue her father for her share of the Galway pub. Her father had a very serious accident resulting in a head injury in 1978 and had been taken care of by the defendant, Ms Philomena Hollywood, in Galway and in the nursing home where he had died.
As a consequence of the head injury he was no longer able to take care of himself and it was because of this that her mother had decided not to pursue a legal claim to her beneficial interest in the pub.
It had been her mother's intention to make a claim for the assets on his death but she unfortunately had predeceased him.