Mr McGahey has just hosted the firm’s quarterly global board meeting in Dublin, attended by recently-appointed global senior partner John Bruce as part of a recent initiative to, as he puts it, “stay closer to the people on the ground in the Kennedys offices”.

There are 45 of these worldwide in 18 countries, employing more than 2,900 people who handle both contentious and non-contentious matters, providing a range of specialist legal services for sectors including insurance and reinsurance, aviation, banking and finance, healthcare and life sciences, with expertise in litigation and dispute resolution, especially in defending insurance and liability claims.

It’s a daunting list, and it’s clear why Mr McGahey appreciates the quietude of rural Ireland. “I worked in London and love the city but my wife, Ruth, is from the countryside in Meath and I wanted to live somewhere where I could see the sunrise and the sunset — and the long summer evenings,” he says.

Recent years have not afforded much opportunity for him to do that, as the insurance industry continues to face an interplay of technological, political, environmental, and economic dynamics. 

Much of Mr McGahey’s recent work has involved aviation cases with Irish aircraft leasing companies that had leased aircraft to Russian airlines, suing their All Risks and War Risks insurers for circa US$4 billion, being the total sum of the aircraft that were not returned to the lessors by the airlines following the imposition of EU sanctions in February 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Our insurer clients were exposed to parallel litigation in England, the US and elsewhere, and that litigation across borders required close management. There were periods when I had absolutely no downtime whatsoever.

“In fact, this year I had to almost re-teach myself golf because I hadn’t played it for so long and forgotten how to swing,” he says ruefully. 

He says he has been fortunate in being involved in multi-jurisdictional matters since the early part of his career. “These have included the Deepwater Horizon case [London market insurers, securities action in US] and acting for the Directors and Officers (D&O) insurers of a US pharma giant on coverage issues arising from a series of securities fraud complaints there, which involved working closely with my US colleagues.”

Other cases which have defined his career path include advising insurers exposed via the insured to the Split Capital Closed Ended Funds scandal in the early 2000s, where investors lost £6 billion and which, at the time, resulted in the FCA’s largest-ever investigation and the creation of a compensation fund of £144 million for investors. 

“This was very big at the time, but then came the likes of Madoff, and the global financial crisis, which made Splits Funds look like small beer. But it exposed me to the financial services industry, the working of regulators, fund managers, fund administrators and investment trusts, which became a mainstay of my practice.”

The result of this and other activity has contributed to impressive financial results for Kennedys: 13 per cent growth worldwide, with revenue of €511 million for the 2024/25 financial year, and almost 14 per cent growth in EMEA.

Revenue in Ireland has doubled in the last three years to almost €17 million, results which John Bruce said reflected the firm’s global growth aspirations, adding: “We have made deliberate strategic decisions, establishing new offices in key jurisdictions and prioritising new leadership across the firm.”

That measure of success is clearly a source of satisfaction to Mr McGahey, though there is, he stresses, always more to achieve. “When I came to Kennedys in Dublin it was with the intention of us changing things quite drastically, in terms of us really striving for excellence. It was all about providing an excellent client service.

“The growth across EMEA offices is also about our partners – doing a really good job for our clients, getting the repeat business in and winning new clients. We have a fantastic base of both global insurer clients and insured clients, many of whom are also multinational companies.”

Since Mr McGahey became regional managing partner in 2021, there has been revenue growth year-on-year in EMEA. “Dublin has been a large contributor to that growth with some very large cases, including most recently, the aviation leasing cases, which generated a lot of revenue for the firm.

“It’s not solely down to that though as in Dublin [at the office in Sir John Rogerson’s Quay] we’ve continued to increase our revenue across our healthcare, liability, defence, marine, professional indemnity and insurance divisions.”

A native of Co Antrim, Mr McGahey graduated from the University of Durham and qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales in 2000, later also qualifying to practice in Ireland. 

He trained and qualified in London and was a partner at Mayer Brown International LLP for nine years before joining Kennedys to head the Dublin office. 

“Key to the client offering in Dublin was providing a City of London level of service to our clients here in Dublin. We have like-minded partners in the Dublin office, and by applying this approach we have increased our client base and volume of instructions, which has increased revenue,” he says.

“I came to Kennedys with experience of dealing with Irish disputes and claims in London. There were global insurer clients who had underwritten Irish risks, there was litigation going on in Ireland, and they instructed me in London to advise them.

“I think the fact that I was Irish was a reason they instructed me, as well as the fact that they liked the advice that I gave them. I’ve been used in my practice in London to providing a very high standard of advice legal services to our clients and I wanted to transpose those demands I made of myself and the expectations I had to the Dublin office.”

He also intends, he adds, to broaden the scope of services that Kennedys in Ireland provides to strengthen ties it has with clients and to reach the global target that John [Bruce] has stated of it trying to become a $1 billion revenue firm by 2030.

“Within EMEA there is also scope to enter new jurisdictions as well,” he says.

Earlier this month Kennedys moved to a new office in the heart of Madrid, reflecting, Mr McGahey says, “the trust our clients place in us and the outstanding work of our team. The move into a larger space is a natural next step in our journey and positions us to attract more local legal talent and continue delivering a world-class service to clients across Spain and other jurisdictions.”

Toward the end of last year he was in Denmark, visiting Kennedys’ Copenhagen office. “Not long before that I was in the Middle East, visiting our offices there,” he adds.

“I would like to go and see those offices more often — and my role now going forward is getting even more focused on management, which should hopefully give me greater latitude to be able to make those trips.”

Back in Meath, where the family keeps two dogs, two donkeys and two Shetland ponies, Mr McGahey’s four children, ranging in age from four to 12, ensure that he is “a busy dad”, ferrying them to and from sporting activities including camogie, football, rugby and tennis. 

He also helps coach the under-11s rugby team at Navan and the under-9 boys’ Bective Gaelic football team.

While his job involves a lot of management, he says he still enjoys getting an instruction, writing a good piece of advice to a client and getting them a result they are happy with. 

“I’m still a lawyer at heart. And it’s great to see colleagues striving to be their best, get out of their comfort zone and test themselves. These are the achievements that make you feel fulfilled.”