Baron must wait on court bid to reclaim ancestral portraits from hotel
Conor O’Brien, the 18th Baron Inchiquin, is also seeking an order restraining Dromoland Castle Hotel, where the paintings have hung for decades, from making copies of the portraits.
Dromoland Castle Holdings Ltd claims it had been prepared to return the paintings to Lord Inchiquin after being allowed time to make the reproductions to cover the “chasms of wall space” laid bare by an en masse return of the portraits.
The company has also denied allegations by Lord Inchiquin that some of the €1.4m-worth of paintings and their gold leaf gilt frames had been damaged.
Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe said he would reserve judgment.
The court heard this week that Lord Inchiquin turned up at Dromoland Castle Hotel in the early hours of the morning, with a Northern Ireland removals company, in a bid to unlawfully take family portraits off the walls.
Mark Nolan, managing director and general manager of the hotel, alleged in a sworn statement that Lord Inchiquin, otherwise known as Conor O’Brien, had told the night porter on Jul 10 that he had Mr Nolan’s permission to remove 37 paintings.
Mr Nolan said he had to be woken from his bed to stop Lord Inchiquin’s team taking the O’Brien ancestral family paintings from the walls.
“It was not until I was notified of these activities and confronted [Lord Inchiquin] and his associates that they removed themselves from the... premises,” said Mr Nolan.
“By the time I arrived, shortly before 1am, two of the paintings had already been removed and boxed. At my request, the paintings were subsequently rehung.”
In a legal row between the aristocrat and the five-star Clare hotel, Mr O’Brien, of Dromoland Estate, Newmarket-on-Fergus, is seeking the return of the portraits that have hung, by agreement, in the castle for decades before and after it became a hotel.
Lord Inchiquin told Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe his solicitor, Robert Dore, had legally terminated the agreement. The hotel had not cared for his collection and considerable damage had been done to the portraits.
He alleged the hotel had been grossly negligent and reckless with regard to the paintings and frames, and that it would cost almost €300,000 to restore them. Gold-leafed frames on 17 paintings had been painted over with gold-coloured household paint and it would cost just under €3,000 a frame to reinstate them.
The baron was also seeking to restrain the hotel from making reproductions of the paintings to hang on its walls after the originals are returned to their owner. The hotel accepts the originals belong to Lord Inchiquin.
Frank Callanan, for the baron, said Lord Inchiquin wanted to sell the paintings to a family member so they could remain within the O’Brien family, and he had been made an offer for the purchase of them.
Jonathan Newman, for the hotel owners, told the court that copyright of the paintings, which, he said, had probably never existed, would have expired long ago and anyone could copy them.
The court also heard the hotel wanted to have reproductions made to replace gaping chasms of bare space following the return of the originals.
He denied that the pictures and frames had been damaged by lack of care by the hotel owners.
