J. E. Kenny

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Joseph Edward Kenny (1845 – April 9, 1900) was a physician, Coroner of the City of Dublin and Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament for South Cork, 1885-92 and for Dublin College Green from 1892 until his resignation in 1896.

Son of J. Kenny of Palmerston, he was educated at the Catholic University, Dublin and at the University of Edinburgh where he obtained his doctorate in medicine (M.D.) in 1870. After returning to Dublin, he became a medical officer to the North Dublin Union and in this role treated smallpox victims in the ‘sheds’ at Glasnevin in the north Dublin epidemic of 1872. He caught the disease himself in spite of having been vaccinated. An active Nationalist, in 1881 he was arrested and confined in Kilmainham Jail, and then dismissed from his post as a medical officer to the North Dublin Union by Chief Secretary W. E. Forster. The Prime Minister Gladstone ordered his reinstatement to this post after his case was raised by Irish members in the House of Commons. Kenny was one of the Treasurers of the Land League and later of the National League. He later became physician to the Catholic national seminary at Maynooth.

Kenny won South Cork by a huge majority over the Conservative candidate in 1885 and was then returned unopposed in 1886. When the Irish Party split over Parnell’s leadership in 1890, Kenny supported Parnell. As a result of the hostility of the Catholic Church to Parnell, Kenny was dismissed from his position as Medical Officer at Maynooth College on 23 October 1891, on straightforwardly political grounds. He was one of only nine Parnellites elected to Parliament in 1892, although he easily won Dublin College Green, securing just over 50% of the vote in a three-cornered fight, and defeating the sitting anti-Parnellite T. D. Sullivan. He was then returned unopposed for the same seat in 1895. Shortly after his election for College Green in 1892, he was elected as Coroner for the City of Dublin (prior to the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, Coroners in Ireland were elected like a member of parliament). Kenny resigned his parliamentary seat in 1896 and died in office as Coroner at the relatively young age of about 55, of blood poisoning after a tooth extraction.

[edit] Selected Writings

Report of the Medical Commission of the Mansion House Committee, by George Sigerson and Joseph E. Kenny, Dublin, Mansion House, 1880

[edit] Sources

Freeman's Journal, 10 April 1900

Margaret Leamy, Parnell’s Faithful Few, New York, Macmillan, 1936

Brian M. Walker (ed.), Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922, Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978

Who Was Who, 1897-1916