Inheritance / "Desertion" Anyone know if this is true please?

[SiblingFights]

TLDR: if someone leaves but does not divorce their spouse in Ireland, do they lose their right to inherit from them after a period of time?

Long complicated and acrimonious story that I won't bore you with, but the shortened version is grandparents died without leaving a will, house has been put in to the names of the four children - for ease Aiden, Bridget, Coleen and Declan / A, B, C and D.

Aiden has a wife and children, but for various reasons wife left taking the children away 30 years ago and nobody knows where they are other than "somewhere up west", although they never divorced. Aiden has now died.

Bridget and Coleen hate Aiden's wife and want to sell the house and split between the three of them.
Declan is insistent that his late brother's wife and children are legally entitled to Aiden's share and wants to find them.

Bridget now says that she has consulted a solicitor who told her that as Aiden's wife deserted him more than 20 years ago, she is legally not entitled to anything.

Declan is living in the US and his US solicitor says that this would be a load of nonsense in the US and can't imagine that Irish law is different but we can't find anything on google to back this up - does anyone know if this is true before we go to the effort and expense of appointing an Irish solicitor?

Thanks a million if you have got this far

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/bbc5d-succession-rights-in-ireland/
The surviving spouse or civil partner is legally entitled to the appropriate share regardless of the actual terms of the will. The fact that the parties may have lived apart for many years does not of itself affect their entitlements.

Bridget is telling porkies!

whatever about Aidan's wife, his children are certainly entitled to inherit at the very least.

Assuming Aiden didn’t leave a will, the wife and children would inherit his estate.

Blimey Bridget sounds like a piece of work. Even if she had a point about Aidan's estranged wife, which she might morally if not legally, how does she (and fellow ugly sister Colleen) justify stealing from her brother's children?

Thanks so much everyone, as you can probably guess, I'm Declan's daughter and we are appalled by the way they're trying to steal from our cousins and their mother.

I know from experience that if the children were under 18 then they would be entitled to Aidens share. However, it sounds like they would be adults now so it’s probably the wife that will get the inheritance….. if they can be found.

Any idea how we go about finding Aiden’s wife please? They don’t seem to publish the phone book online. Is the electoral register available in the library?
Thanks again.

Google their names and see what comes up. You'd be surprised and perhaps alarmed by the amount of information that can come up.
Put in area you think they might be - even if it's just the province.
You probably know sil's maiden name - she may have reverted back to it.