Hugh Peter Kennedy: Doyen of the legal classes
Maintaining order is an essential for a functioning society. Order is matched by a second arm, the law. Allowing for dissenting views to be voiced fairly is a requirement, too. But, without rules, would there be a protection of freedoms? In the absence of rules, anarchical aspirations follow, for sure. In the media there is reference to national and international law every day. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Kennedys from Cavan Town were doyens of the legal profession. This week we look at the life of Hugh P. Kennedy, one of the county’s one-time solicitors.
Cavan Urban
Over a 40-year period, he served as legal adviser, firstly to the Town Commissioners, and later to the Cavan Urban Council who succeeded them. Kennedy played a conspicuous role ‘in having brought to fruition’ a series of schemes, which ‘remodelled’ the town. These alterations to the town’s landscape included construction projects like that of Breffni Terrace, the Egg Market and Cavan’s Town Hall. Kennedy represented the Rural District Council too.
Kennedy served as solicitor to the Cavan Board of Guardians who were the town’s sanitary authority before the Local Government Act was brought in. Hugh strongly advocated for the establishment of a waterworks scheme for Cavan. The idea had first ‘originated’ with John P. Gannon, J.P., and was ‘sanctioned’ by the Poor Law Board to be installed. Kennedy tended to support innovations that improved the town’s health, its comfort, business prospects and its physical structure. Kennedy was also solicitor for the Midland Great Western Railway and the Great Northern Railway.
Kennedy had an unswerving devotion to the Catholic Church. This newspaper reported on a meeting in 1867 which Hugh attended to denounce ‘the aggression of the Italian anti-clerics in depriving Pope Pius IX of his Temporal Power’. Hugh was an unselfish man with a “magnetic presence”, whose friends included King Edward VII ‘to whom he was presented at Hamburg’ when Edward was still the Prince of Wales.
Carrickmacross
In the early 1860s, Hugh trained as an apprentice solicitor to Mr John Armstrong, a solicitor in Carrickmacross. In 1865, he qualified and thereafter worked on all the principal criminal cases of the day. Fourteen years later, he was promoted to the position of Sessions Crown Solicitor and in 1897 he was elevated to the role of ‘Crown Solicitor for the Co Cavan'.
As a prosecutor he always acted in a just manner towards defendants. In court, Kennedy was renowned for self-control shown when confronted by tight situations in the courtroom. A good judge of character, they say that he put an unsettled expression on the faces of liars when cross-examined by him. In a deliberate manner, he cleverly dragged admissions of guilt from the unsuspecting. Judges who oversaw the seasonal Assizes regularly complimented Hugh P. on the legal magic he worked.
A case in point, was his handling of the Enagh murder. It demonstrated the solicitor’s impartiality. The Anglo-Celt reported that he was ‘absolutely just’ with the defendants ‘which was strikingly exemplified’ in the Enagh murder trial when ‘little incidents’ were ignored by the police.
Hugh sifted through the evidence, step by step, and ‘electrified' the court sitting in Virginia when he announced to the presiding magistrates that 'the accused might be discharged'. He succeeded in overturning the case against the accused who was allowed to go home. When Hugh decided to take a step back from his job, he was ably replaced by his son Frederick E. Kennedy who had been running his father’s company from 1904.
Hugh was a sportsman and an excellent shot who enjoyed shooting competitions. His other sporting activities included angling and golf. In the company of his old friends Sir Nicholas Gosselin, Mr. J. J. Benson, Slieve Russell, and Captain George de la Poer, he and they were promoters of the Cavan Races.
Death
At 11 o’clock on Monday, July 18, 1910, Hugh Kennedy died. When the news spread about the town of Cavan on the Tuesday, the place fell into deep mourning. On the previous evening, Hugh returned from a day’s fishing at Killykeen where he had spent time with his son Vincent P. Kennedy MP, Master T.A. Finlay and Master Aidan McCabe. A Home Rule supporter, Vincent was MP for West Cavan with the Irish Parliamentary Party.
He got home at 9pm and was found to be in his usual humour. He had eaten dinner and rested awhile before heading to his bedroom for the night at 10:30pm. Shortly afterwards Mrs Kennedy thought she heard him shouting or calling out. When she reached the bedroom, he was lying ‘reclined across the bed'. Sensing he was in trouble, she ‘summoned’ the household for help.
Rev. H. Brady C.C., and doctors McGauran and Acheson were hurriedly sent for. They were there within five minutes. But Hugh did not respond and slipped away. Shortly afterwards, he was officially pronounced dead.
The Anglo-Celt stated: ‘By the death of Mr. Kennedy the county of Cavan has lost its most striking personality. He was by common consent the leader of the Ulster solicitors, a lawyer of keen penetration, one of the ablest cross-examiners that Ireland ever produced, a wise councillor, a master of tact, a ready, pointed and impressive speaker, and one of the noted wits of his day.’
His love of the church was always in evidence and on the morning of his last day, he had visited the Cathedral to pray at the Altar of the Blessed Sacrament where he prayed for 20 minutes.
Before Hugh P. Kennedy’s remains were brought from the Cathedral to Cullies, the Bishop-elect delivered a panegyric. He announced: ‘Before the remains of Mr. Kennedy are taken from the House of God to his resting place, it is my duty to ask you to offer up now, and for some time to come, fervent prayers for the repose of his soul.’
While they carried the coffin to the hearse, the organist, Miss Roche, played the ‘Dead March in Saul’ and as the notes rose and fell, there was many ‘tear-dimmed eyes’ observed.
Hugh P. was survived by his wife Catharine and children, including Vincent P. Kennedy, Frederick E. Kennedy, Farnham street, Cavan, and Harry Kennedy. Vincent lived in Monkstown, Dublin and Frederick practised as a solicitor in Cavan until his death in the early 1940s.
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