Patrick Kennedy

Kennedy, Patrick, was born in the County of Wexford early in 1801. In 1823, although a Catholic, he came to Dublin as assistant at the Protestant Training School, Kildare-place. After a few years he established the small lending-library and bookshop in Anglesea-street (corner of Cope-street), where he spent the remainder of his life. He was a man of considerable ability, and contributed several articles to the pages of the University Magazine. The best of these, Legends of the Irish Celts, Tales of the Duffrey, Banks of the Boro, were afterwards published separately. In the graphic delineation of Irish rural life, as he experienced it when a boy in the County of Wexford, he has seldom been surpassed. His works are singularly pure, and he cramped his prospects in trade by declining to lend or deal in works that he considered of an objectionable tendency. For many years the committees of the Hibernian Temperance Association and kindred bodies were held at his house. Mr. Kennedy was widely known and respected by the literary world of Dublin. He died 28th March 1873, aged about 72, and was buried at Glasnevin.

Sources

233. Manuscript and Special Information, and Current Periodicals.