OBITUARY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 10

OBITUARY

MR. TIM" HEALY

FIRST GOVERNOR OF IRISH FREE STATE

(Eeceived 27th March, 1 p.m.) LONDON, 26th March. The death is announced of Mr. Tim Healy, first Governor-General of the Irish Free State, at the age of 75.

Mr. Healy's lii'e was an admirable illustration of the fact that the organisation of British soriety offers a career open to all the talents. Mr. Healy's origin 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. Healy's first employment was as a clerk in Dublin. From there he soon migrated to Newcastle-on-Tyne to a. position as shorthand clerk in the office of the secretary of the North-Eastern Railway. It is related that a large part of his duties there was to receive complaints from dissatisfied customers of tho railway, and to give the "soft answer which turneth away wrath." The statement may well provoke a smile, because Mr. Healy has never been known to give a soft answer in his life, and as ho was a master of sarcasm, the nature of his intercourse with the Newcastle traders may be left to the imagination. While in Newcastle Mr. Healy made with fortunate results the acquaintance of Mr. John Barry, afterwards a member of Parliament, and a great linoleum manufacturer. This friendship resulted in the two men "entering into partnership, which laid the foundation of the considerable private fortune owned by Mr. Healy, though he never took an active part in linoleum manufacture. While in', Newcastle he' interested himself in Irish politics, and began to contribute articles to the newspapers. Later on he came to London as correspondent of the "Nation," then owned by Mr. T. I). Sullivan, a relation of his own, who afterwards became his father-in-law. Mr. Parnell was just then starting on his career, and Mr. Healy's brilliant articles —for ho was a writer of extraordinary piquancy and vigour—attracted his attention. Parnell offered the young journalist the position of private secretary to himself. Mr. Healy accepted the offer, and thus planted his foot on the ladder tff success and fame. Through Parnell's influence he was elected to Parliament, and his after-career is too well known to need recapitulation. WITH PAKNELL. It is said that the relations between Mr. Parnell and his brilliant secretary were strained and unamicable from the first. Parnell was a man who could brook no opposition to his will. Healy dared to oppose him frequently, with the result that there were soon laid the foundations of the bitter hatred which was manifested between the two later on, when the Irish party split and Parnell was deposed from tho leadership. But whatever tho private relations between tho two men, up to the split Mr. Healy gave his leader loyal and whole-hearted support, and_ became one of the most prominent, daring, and effective spokesmen of his party in the House of Commons. • When the split came he was Parnell's bitterest, opponent, and as he had behind him almost the whole of the Catholic clergy in Ireland he was also the most formidable. In all the subsequent events of stormy Irish politics Mr. Healy was a prominent figure down to the final collapse of the Constitutional party. Since then he was a. consistent opponent of the policy represented by De Valera and the late Mr. Childers. He was the unanimous choice of tho Irish Parliament for the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State, an event of more significance than appeared on the surface, because Mr. Healy was .a convinced believer in tho possibility of effecting an amicable union with the North of Ireland. As Governor-General from 19^2 to 1925, ho vnis in a position tr; exert considerable influence in that direction. Mr. Healy was 7# .vcars old, and membership of the Irish Bar brought him a Q.C.-ship. In 1910 he became n K.C. He has published a number of books an Ireland.