 Her father, David Sheehy, was a nationalist MP.Tom and Mary Kettle had one child, a daughter, Elisabeth ("Betty"), who was born in 1913.Tom Kettle was also the brother-in-law (by his wife, the former Mary Sheehy) of both Francis Skeffington and the journalist Frank Cruise O'Brien, father of the Labour TD and Irish government minister, later UK Unionist Party politician, Conor Cruise O'Brien.