A RETIRED publican cut his lover of 25 years out of his will and left everything to his son after claiming she was his housekeeper, it was claimed before the High Court yesterday.
Bernard “Ben” Smyth (80) gave a copy of his will to Bridget “Breege” Lennon (60), leaving the house they lived in together to her, but months later, unknown to her, he made a second will leaving everything to his son Michael Smyth, the court was told.
Ms Lennon, a part-time bar-worker, has asked Mr Justice Roderick Murphy to order that Michael Smyth, as executor of his father’s will, should comply with an alleged agreement between herself and his father for her to be left a house on three acres at Cornacarrow, Drung, Co Cavan.
She claims Ben Smyth, who died in 2005, repeatedly promised this to her and effectively put that in writing when he made a will in November 2001. Mr Smyth made another will in April 2002 leaving everything, including his half-share in a pub in Tullyvin, Cavan, to his son Michael.
Michael Smyth, a bricklayer, Dellfield Close, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, denies Ms Lennon and his father lived together “in like manner to that of man and wife”. He claims his father told him she was his housekeeper.
Ms Lennon told the court yesterday she began working for Ben Smyth in 1977 in the Tullyvin Tavern where three of his five children lived in accommodation over the pub. She worked in the bar, had a room upstairs and cooked for the children, she said.
When Mr Smyth left the family home at Cornacarrow later that year, he moved into the pub and they developed a close personal relationship, she said.
Nine years later, Mr Smyth decided to lease out the pub and they moved into his family home where they bred greyhounds and lived together until his death in 2005. Mr Smyth repeatedly told her over the years he would not leave her without a roof over her head and, as they left his solicitor’s office in 2001, he gave her a copy of his will leaving the house and land to her, Ms Lennon said.
After his death, she was “devastated” when Michael Smyth told her there was another will.
She told her counsel that Michael Smyth had offered to let her stay in the house but she refused to accept this because she would not be able to do anything with the property and he would be coming back and forth from England to the house. She later moved back to live with her mother before eventually obtaining a council house.
Told by counsel that Michael Smyth would say she was his father’s housekeeper, she said: “We lived together as man and wife, for God’s sake, who was there to say we didn’t?”
Under cross-examination, she accepted Ben and Michael had a good relationship. She agreed Michael gave money to Ben to have the pub done up and also got him a van to transport greyhounds.
She said she did not work around the house just for money and said that was because she and Ben Smyth were lovers.
The case continues.