Newspaper: Breach of Promise. (DWYER/DILLON) 

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Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives
Limerick Index
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File contributed by:  Mary Heaphy

BREACH OF PROMISE - DWYER/DILLON 

Breach of Promise--At the Limerick assizes on Saturday, 
before Judge O'BRIEN, the case of Ellen DWYER and John 
DILLON was tried. The action was for breach of promise of 
marriage, and the damages were laid at 100/. The parties in 
the case were independent farmers living in the vicinity of 
Palla, of nearly an equal standing in society, and it 
appears that the defendant promised to marry the plaintiff 
before the 7th March 1859, that his father had a deed of 
settlement drawn up in which it was specified the lady was 
to have a fortune of 250/.; that the parties came into the 
town for the purpose of buying all the necessaries requisite 
for the wedding banquet, which cost £50, the money of the 
lady, and, notwithstanding which the defendant went the 
following day and married another. The young woman by this 
means had her name exposed, in compensation for which she 
sought the damages mentioned in the summons and plaint at 
the hands of the jury. The defence recorded on the files of 
the court was, that although the defendant had promised to 
marry the plaintiff within a reasonable time, it was upon 
special conditions, which were, that a person named John 
Dillon, whom he described in his evidence not as his own 
brother, but as the brother in law of the plaintiff, 
promised to give him a right to certain lands, but that the 
latter refusing to give it he was, therefore, to be 
discharged from the promise. In the evidence, however, there 
had been no proof of this condition, but is was proved that 
when the defendant's father was screwing for an additional 
fortune, his son, who had about £600 in value, replied he 
would sooner lose the difference, as he would not part with 
her for a thousand pounds, nor did he give any intimation of 
relinquishing her until the wedding dinner was purchased and 
he was married to another. The jury found for the plaintiff 
£100 damages, with 6d., costs.


Source:
JULY 25, 1859 COUNTY LIMERICK.
FROM THE TIMES, COPIED FROM THE LIMERICK REPORTER