MR. TIMOTHY HEALY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 145, 16 December 1927, Page 9

MR. TIMOTHY HEALY

IRISH GOVERNORSHIP

RETIREMENT PENDING

(United Press' Association.— Copyright.) LONDONyJStK December. A message from Dublin states that Mr. Timothy Healy is "about-to retire after being five years Governor-General of the Irish Free State. ''•'• '

Constructive statesmanship has never been a characteristic of Mr. 'fTim" Healy, the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State. ■■ As a destructive critic, gifted with a mordant* sardonic

wit, a complete disregard of the accepted ' conventionalities of public life, and an unrivalled capacity for making personal enemies, he stood supreme during Mb previous Parliamentary career. The mellowing influence of age and tho. experience

gained as a lawyer have softened the natural asperities of the'man, able beyond question and endowed with high intellectual capacity. Two qualities in particular fitted him for his onerous duties. His physical and moral courage are beyond doubt or question, and he is endowed with a sense of humour which saves him from that ridicule which kills more rapidly in Ireland than in any other country. Mr. Healy's origin 1 was humble enough. His father was. clerk to a board of guardians in County Kerry, a situation not ill-paid, but offering little opportunity for the acquisition • of wealth. It enabled the father to give his sons a sufficiently good education, but they had to begin early to earn their own living. Mr. "Tim" Healy started out as a clerk in Dublin, but soon migrated to Newcastle-on-Tyne, to a position as shorthand clerk pa the NorthEastern Eailway. Mr. Healy: : here mads the_ acquaintance of Mr:"John Barry a linoleum manufacturer, "and this friendship resulted in the; two men" going, into partnership, thus, laying the foundation of the considerable private fortune .for both. He interested himself .in Irish politics, and began to contribute articles to the newspapers, later gf?& v .toJ'?. nd(m as the correspondent of 'The Nation," then owned by a relation, Mr T. D.Sullivan,. who afterwards became his father-in-law. Mr. Parnell was just then starting on his career, and Mr. Healy's brilliant articles attracted his attention, and the young journalist was offered the position of private secretary to the Irish leader, thus planting his foot on the political ladder! Through Parnell's influence <he was elected to Parliament/ and his after career is/well known. He was the unanimous choice of the Irish Parliauient for the office of first GovernorGeneral of the Irish Free State, an event of more significance than appears on the surface, for Mr. Healy has been all alon£ convinced of the possibility of effecting an amicable union with the North of Ireland, though hia ideas have not been consummated. Mr. Healy has, however, given life-long, devoted service to Ireland.