Hugh Kennedy

Hugh Kennedy (11 July 1879 – 1 December 1936) was the only Attorney General of Southern Ireland and the first Attorney General of the Irish Free State, and later the first Chief Justice of the Irish Free State. As a member of the Irish Free State Constitution Commission, he was also one of the constitutional architects of the Irish Free State. He was also elected to the 4th Dáil.

Hugh Kennedy was born in Dublin in 1879, son of the prominent surgeon Hugh Boyle Kennedy. His younger sister was the journalist Mary Olivia Kennedy. He studied for the examinations of the Royal University while a student at University College Dublin and King's Inns, Dublin, and was called to the Bar in 1902. He was appointed King's Counsel in 1920 and became a Bencher of King's Inns in 1922.

During 1920 and 1921 Hugh Kennedy was a senior legal adviser to the representatives of Dáil Éireann during the negotiations for the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He was highly regarded as a lawyer by Michael Collins, who later regretted that Kennedy had not been part of the delegation sent to London in 1921 to negotiate the terms of the Treaty.

On 31 January 1922 Kennedy became Attorney General of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State. Later that year he was appointed by the Provisional Government to the Irish Free State Constitution Commission to draft the Constitution of the Irish Free State. The Irish Free State was established on 6 December 1922, and the functions of the Provisional Government were transferred to the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. Kennedy was appointed Attorney General of the Irish Free State on 7 December 1922.

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