A stage actor with Ireland's prestigious Abbey Players in the late 1900s, Kerrigan acted in and directed the Irish film O'Neil of the Glen in 1916. He came to the States the following year, and in the '20s acted mostly on the stage. In the '30s, Kerrigan appeared in numerous Hollywood films, most notably John Ford's The Lost Patrol, The Informer, The Prisoner of Shark Island, and The Plough and the Stars, Stuart Walker's The Werewolf of London, Lewis Milestone's The General Died at Dawn, Garson Kanin's The Great Man Votes, Cecil B. De Mille's Union Pacific, and Victor Fleming's Gone with the Wind. Over the next two decades, Kerrigan acted in Michael Curtiz' The Sea Hawk, Ford's The Long Voyage Home, George Waggner's The Wolf Man, Henry King's Wilson, Henry Hathaway's Call Northside 777, and Richard Fleischer's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.