Early Life
O'Kennedy was born in Nenagh, County Tipperary into a family that had strong links to Sinn Féin and the Old IRA. He was educated locally at St. Mary's national school before later boarding at St. Flannan's College, Ennis. He briefly studied for the priesthood at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, where he was a contemporary of future Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume. After securing first place in a university scholarship in 1953 O'Kennedy obtained an M.A. degree from University College Dublin. He taught in Switzerland for a while and, resuming his legal studies, he was subsequently called to the Bar in 1961. Twelve years later he was appointed Senior Counsel.
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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