J. E. Kenny

Joseph Edward Kenny (1845 – 9 April 1900) was an Irish physician, Coroner of the City of Dublin, nationalist politician and Member of Parliament (MP). In the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, he was an Irish Parliamentary Party MP for South Cork from 1885 to 1892, and then a Parnellite MP for Dublin College Green from 1892 until his resignation in 1896.

Son of J. Kenny, manager of a lead mine at Palmerstown, Co. Dublin, he was educated at the Catholic University of Ireland in 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 Irish Nationalist, in 1881 he was arrested under the Coercion Act and confined in Kilmainham Jail. Here his status as a qualified physician was of considerable value to his fellow Nationalist prisoners, including Charles Stewart Parnell, because he was able to insist that the prison authorities provide proper medical care. As a result of this prison term he was 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 Irish National League. He later became physician to the Catholic national seminary at Maynooth.

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