Educated at Fermoy Christian Brothers' School, Healy left school at the age of 13 and became a railway clerk in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Moving to London in 1878 he became parliamentary correspondent and then was called to Canada to organize his political mission there. He then took an active part in the agrarian agitation in Ireland, was arrested for intimidation but acquitted on trial shortly after. Returned unopposed as Member of Parliament for Wexford (1880-1918), Healy soon made himself a master of parliamentary procedure. He was called to the bar in 1884 and built up a practice in land law. He declared his sympathy with the ideals of the Sinn Féin party and in 1918 resigned his seat in Cork in favor of a Sinn Féin prisoner. In 1922, after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Healy was appointed Governor-General of the Irish Free State on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor in the Cabinet of David Lloyd George, Lord Birkenhead, and Kevin O'Higgins, his cousin. Biography source: [4] |
