Two barristers bought Countess Markievicz's childhood home and spent seven years in court with Sligo County Council over its avenues

Lissadell House was built in 1830 to 1835 for Sir Robert Gore-Booth. Constance Gore-Booth, later Countess Markievicz, and the poet Eva Gore-Booth grew up there. The Irish state declined to buy it, citing an estimated cost of €28 million^†. In 2003 Sir Josslyn Gore-Booth sold the 410-acre estate for €4 million to two Dublin senior counsel, Edward Walsh and Constance Cassidy. They reported spending about €9.5 million on restoration. In December 2008 Sligo County Council passed a resolution to protect public rights of way over the estate's avenues. The owners sued in January 2009 and announced the house's closure. After a 58-day hearing, Mr Justice Bryan McMahon of the High Court found in December 2010 that the public had rights of way over four avenues. He held that the Gore-Booths had dedicated them between 1857 and 1861. On 11 November 2013 a five-judge Supreme Court reversed most of that ruling. It found no public right of way over three routes, and one only over part of a coastal route to the beach, because the public use relied on began in the 1950s. In 2014 the court ordered the council to pay three-quarters of the owners' costs and all of its own, about €2 million. Total costs were estimated at about €7 million, and parts of the bill were still before the Taxing Master in October 2018. In 2026 the owners run Lissadell as a seasonal attraction; its website says it is closed until 29 May 2027.