Goodbody & Kennedy, Solicitors

Kenneth A. Kennedy joined the firm of A. & L. Goodbody after the death of Alfred Goodbody in 1924 and was probably a partner in the Tullamore office by 1930. Kennedy was called to the bar in 1917 and qualified as a solicitor in 1924. In 1930 Kenneth Kennedy, Lewis Goodbody and George Acheson Overend acquired the fee simple as joint tenants of the office premises at High Street, Tullamore held on lease since 1913. Lewis Goodbody died in 1933 and the ownership of the firm (at least as far as Tullamore was concerned) was shared between G. O. Overend and Kenneth Arthur Kennedy, but not necessarily in equal shares. In 1947 a new partnership arrangement was entered into between Overend and Kennedy and the following year Kenneth Arthur Kennedy acquired the entire interest in the building at High Street for £800.13. The A. & L. Goodbody partnership in the Tullamore office appears at this time to have comprised of G. A. Overend, Kenneth A. Kennedy and G. G. Overend. The Tullamore building was to serve the Tullamore firm, known since the late 1940s as Goodbody & Kennedy, until 1989 when the business was sold to Dermot Scanlon by Kenneth C. P. Kennedy. Kenneth A. Kennedy had remained a partner in A & L Goodbody, Dublin until his death in December 1974 at the age of 80 but the Dublin office had no involvement in the Tullamore firm probably from the late 1940s.

Kenneth C. P. Kennedy (M 1949) was welcomed to the district court as a new solicitor in March 1950. Kenneth Kennedy practised with his father, K. A. Kennedy in the firm of Goodbody & Kennedy until the latter’s death and continued on his own account up to his retirement from full time practice in 1989. At that point the firm was incorporated into the firm of J D Scanlon, Tullamore where Mr Kennedy carried on as a consultant for several years.

Solicitors

ISAAR (CPF): International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families, 2nd Edition (2011)

February 2016

Byrne, M., Legal Offaly: the county courthouse at Tullamore and the legal profession in County Offaly from the 1820s to the present day, Esker Press, 2008

Created by Lisa Shortall