Matthew Joseph Kenny

Matthew Joseph Kenny (1 February 1861 – 8 December 1942) was an Irish lawyer and Nationalist politician from County Clare. He was elected to the United Kingdom House of Commons at the age of 21, qualified as a barrister whilst still a member of parliament (MP), and later became a judge in the Irish Free State.

Kenny was born at Freaghcastle, near Milltown Malbay in County Clare, to the solicitor Michael Kenny and his wife Bridget, née Frost. The family were major landholders.

He attended Ennis College an Erasmus Smith school,. Thom's Irish Who's Who states he attended Stonyhurst, and Trinity College, Dublin,. This seems to be incorrect and all other contemporary sources confirm that he in fact attended Ennis School and Queen's Univ. While serving at Westminster, he was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1886 and at the King's Inns, Dublin, in 1889. In 1899 he went bankrupt and his estates were sold off. He became a King's Counsel in 1914.

Kenny was just 21 years of age when he was selected as the Home Rule League candidate for a by-election for Ennis in November 1882.

Ennis's Home Rule MP Lysaght Finigan had resigned his seat on 15 September 1882, owing to ill-health. According to Kieran Sheedy's The Clare Elections (p. 269),

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