Kennedy worked as a journalist in Northern Ireland, the United States,
Ethiopia and the
Republic of Ireland, and subsequently as Head of the
European Commission office in
Belfast, and as lecturer in European Studies in Queen's University Belfast. His career in journalism began as a reporter with the
Belfast Telegraph in 1959. In 1963 he won a Fellowship with the World Press Institute in
Minnesota, US, spending more than a year in the United States, including three months working with the
Newark News, in
New Jersey. He documented this year in the book Yankee Doodles which includes his account of being in the White House on the day of President John F Kennedy's funeral. In 1964 he returned to the
Belfast Telegraph as Chief Leader writer, leaving in 1966 to take up a position with the
Lutheran World Federation as assistant news editor at their radio station, RVOG, in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 1968 he returned to Ireland, joining
The Irish Times in Dublin as a reporter. He was appointed Diplomatic Correspondent in 1969, European Editor in 1972, Assistant Editor in 1974 and Deputy Editor in 1982. In 1985 he ended 17 years with
The Irish Times and returned to
Belfast to take up the post of Head of the
European Commission Office in
Northern Ireland. (1985–1991). In 1993 he joined the academic staff of
Queen's University, Belfast as a research fellow, and later lecturer, in European Studies. He retired in 2001. He was President of the Irish Association for Cultural, Economic and Social Relations 1999–2000, President of the
Belfast Literary Society, 2006–07, and a founder member of The Cadogan Group (est 1991). ==Personal life and death==