Collection EL1 - Laois/Offaly Parliamentary Elections of 1923

Henry Francis Brenan was born in Dublin of a County Kilkenny family from Eden Hall, Ballyragget and qualified a solicitor in 1907. He was the son of a solicitor and was apprenticed to R. M. McNamara, a Dublin solicitor. After upwards of three years with McNamara, Mr Brenan came to Tullamore in 1910. In 1914 he became a partner with George Hoey in the firm of Hoey & Denning, Tullamore. At aged 30, Brenan was duly appointed on 27 July 1916 to hold the combined offices of crown solicitor and sessional crown solicitor. In October 1921 Brenan’s resignation as crown solicitor in before the Treaty was under duress from the IRA or it may have been self-serving in that he was under pressure to give up the town clerkship of Tullamore Urban District Council if he did not resign the crown solicitorship. This arose out of a Dáil Eireann letter to the council and, after mid-1920, Sinn Féin instructions to all councils not to co-operate with British institutions of government.