Andrew Kettle

Andrew Joseph Kettle (1833–1916) was a leading Irish nationalist politician, progressive farmer, agrarian agitator and founding member of the Irish Land League, known as 'the right-hand man' of Charles Stewart Parnell. He was also a much admired old friend of the nationalist politician, Frank Hugh O'Donnell, and the poet and novelist Katharine Tynan.

Born into the Jacobean-style manor, Drynam House, Swords, Co. Dublin and educated at Ireland's most prestigious Catholic boarding school, Clongowes Wood College, he was an affluent farmer owning various holdings in County Dublin. He married Margaret McCourt, daughter of Laurence McCourt of St. Margaret’s, Finglas, North Co. Dublin. They lived mainly in Millview House, Malahide, Co. Dublin and had twelve children, among whom were the industrial pioneer, Laurence Kettle, and the writer, poet, Irish Volunteer and Member of Parliament (MP) at Westminster, Thomas Kettle, a man widely regarded as one of the greatest minds of his generation, who died in World War I. He and his father were members of the Repeal Association.

As a member of the Tenant Right League in the 1850s, he was influenced by the policies of Isaac Butt following the publication of Butt’s Plea for the Celtic Race (1866), so was from an early age in the constitutional movement to achieve Irish home rule. Kettle later became a close supporter of Michael Davitt and was instrumental in persuading Charles Stewart Parnell to support the land agitations of the late 1870s. He presided at the first meeting of the Land League in October 1879, at which Parnell became president and Kettle its honorary secretary.

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