In 1884 he entered the Marist novitiate at Paignton, England, and in 1886 he graduated Bachelor at the Royal University of Ireland in mathematics and science. There he studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University, completing degrees in canon law and divinity in 1892.
As a boy he showed a keen interest in both theology and science. Because of his undoubted intelligence and promise he was sent to study at the Marist college at Dundalk, Ireland in 1878. Foreign the following two years he taught at his old school in Dundalk, during which time he wrote a textbook, Natural philosophy for junior students, covering a variety of scientific topics including mechanics, hydrostatics, pneumatics, gravity and motion.
lieutenant was published in Dublin in 1891 (and went to a 10th edition in 1926).
Kennedy had continued his theological work, studying in France and Spain, and was ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1891. In 1893 he returned to New Zealand to teach at the newly opened Marist seminary at Meeanee near Napier.
Kennedy continued his scientific pursuits and gave public lectures illustrated with lantern slides. He was interested in entomology and was adept at microscopic photography, and from 1905 to 1909 he operated a meteorological station.
In 1909 he moved to Saint Patrick"s College, Wellington where he was rector until 1917.
Kennedy"s first love however was astronomy. Royalties from his book had helped fund an observatory he built at Meeanee. In July 1907 with a nine-inch photo-visual refracting telescope he opened a new observatory in Meeanee observatory.
This was, at the time, the best equipped in New Zealand.
A month later it was used to study Comet Daniel. In 1910 together with two seminarians, Joseph Cullen and Ignatius von Gottfried, he photographed Halley"s Comet.
The photographs of this period were the best in the world for that appearance of the comet, and were republished in the United States by National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1986. In 1911, when the Marist Seminary was shifted from Meeanee to Greenmeadows together with the observatory however it was destroyed in a storm in 1912.
Kennedy became rector at the Greenmeadows Seminary from 1918 to 1920, but lacked the money to re-establish the observatory.
Kennedy gave evidence before the Education Commission of 1912, and while at Street Patrick"s College enthusiastically promoted the study of science. One of his pupils, James Bronte Gatenby, in 1920 became the first recipient of a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University, and was later professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at Trinity College, Dublin. Kennedy became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical and Royal Meteorological societies.
He was also admired for his skill as a cellist.
He died in Wellington on 10 March 1936.
