Leopold Harding Kerney | |
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Irish Ambassador to France from Ireland to France |
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In office 1923 – 1925 |
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Succeeded by | Count Gerald Edward O'Kelly de Gallagh et Tycooly |
Irish Ambassador to Spain from Ireland to Spain |
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In office January 1, 1935 – December 31, 1946 |
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Succeeded by | John Aloysius Belton |
Personal details | |
Born |
December 11, 1881 Carlow |
Died | June 8, 1962 5 Merton Road, Rathmines, Dublin |
(aged 80)
Spouse(s) | Raymonde (m. 14 August 1914), daughter of Pierre Elie, cooper, and Eugénie Julie Verdier, of Saint-Caprice, France. |
Children | John/Jean, Micheline Kerney-Walshe (qv), and Eamon. |
Mother | Annie Kerney (née Knight). |
Father | Philip Joseph Kerney, journalist, sub-editor of the Daily Express (Dublin) and editor of The Irish Times |
Alma mater | spent some years at Trinity College, Dublin, though he left without graduating. |
Leopold H. Kerney was the first Irish Minister Plenipotentiary to be appointed to Spain and remained at this post from 1935 until his retirement in 1946. He could be termed a "diplomat by accident" as he began his career in the Irish diplomatic service at the age of 38 when, being primarily interested in promoting direct trade between Ireland and France where he was living at the time, he visited Arthur Griffith in 1919 who appointed him trade representative, then Consul in Paris. The most publicised events of his career during his period in Spain concern his contacts with German agents between 1940 and 1942.