File 9 - Digby - Geashill Estate 1944-1947

Kenneth Arthur Kennedy was the youngest son of Doctor J. M. Prior Kennedy, JP, of Elmfield, Tullamore King’s County, and Anchoretta H. Jacob. He was born on 3 April 1894 and was educated at St Columba’s College and Trinity College. K. A. Kennedy was called to the bar in 1917 and qualified as a solicitor in 1924. He was a solicitor with A & L Goodbody with offices at Dame Street, Dublin, Moate and Tullamore becoming a partner by 1930. Alfred Goodbody had died in 1924 in the same year as Kenneth Kennedy qualified. In 1930 Kenneth Kennedy, Lewis Goodbody and George Acheson Overend acquired the fee simple as joint tenants of premises at High Street, Tullamore held on lease since 1913. Lewis Goodbody died in 1933 and the ownership of the firm was shared between G. O. Overend and Kenneth Arthur Kennedy, but not necessarily in equal shares. In 1947 a new partnership arrangement was entered into between Overend and Kennedy and the following year Kenneth Arthur Kennedy acquired the entire interest in the building at High Street for £800. The A & L Goodbody, Tullamore partnership appears at this time to have comprised of G. A. Overend, Kenneth A. Kennedy and G. G. Overend. The Tullamore building was to serve the Tullamore firm now known as Goodbody & Kennedy until 1989 when the business was sold to Dermot Scanlon by Kenneth C. P. Kennedy. He had been active in the firm up to his death on 9 December 1974 at the age of 80 and had served his clients in Tullamore for fifty years. He married Mary Lawrence in 1924, the same year as he qualified as a solicitor. She was better known locally as Bean Uí Chinnéide and was a keen landscape painter and with her husband a lover of nature. Mr Kennedy’s tombstone at Clonminch fittingly records – /He loved his birds/ and he loved his bible/The word of God/ a Lantern to his feet/. Court tributes were paid to Mr Kennedy by District Justice Tormey at Tullamore district court and on behalf of the solicitors by Mr Eugene Hunt.