A NOTABLE PRIEST.

Evening Star, Issue 9582, 31 December 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

A NOTABLE PRIEST.

Father Healy, the renowned parish priest , of Bray and of Bally brack, near Dublin, has just died. Without ambition or effort he became famous on both sides of the Channel us the complete embodiment of Irish geist. For his friends it was as though one had i happened to meet in the flesh the real, living John Bull or Uncle Sam or Sandy of tradit tion. The sort of things the typical'lrish- , man says in stores, and is expected to say often, Father Healy actually said, quite spontaneously, never for effect; quaint, profound, ludicrous ideas and sayings > bubbled from his lips naturally and incessantly. Irish society, having discovered i Father Healy, never let him go to the last. He was sought" after by Dublin dinneri givers, such as Lords Londonderry; Ardilaun, Powerscourt, and Wolseley. Popular i belief ranks him as one of those rare beings—a Unionist priest. Actually he was not much of i a politician—dined with the Unionists and agreed with the Nationalists. He used to ■ say that he was a member of " the convin- ■ cibles, not the invincibles." Many of his sayings have become classic. One deserves i to be so. When the present Government s came in, a party of enthusiastic Nationalists were discussing the future, and one of them asked the priest: " What do you think your namesake, Tim Healy, will be in the • first Home Rule Government ?" The reply was: "A very ould, white-haired man." '. Father Healy was of true peasant origin, i very handsome features, beautiful complexion, glittering eye?, and a musical voice. His mother, a poor widow, who i kept a huckster's shop in a back i lane in Dubiin, out of her savings managed to educate him for the priesthood. Once at a dinner at the Viceregal Lodge some snobbish new-comer, wishing to chaff the old priest, asked if he remembered the Duchess of Richmond, [ wife of a former lord-lieutenant? "I do ' not," said Healy bluntly. " Well, that's very odd," continued the would -te humorist, "you m-uot often havo mot the Duchess in society here in your younger days." Father Healy assumed a con fid en- ■ tially diplomatic air, and explained: "I don't mind revealing a secret after this * lapse of time; the fact is me mother and the Duchess never quite hit it off together." Father Healy possessed also the gentle art of making other people talk. His dinners to brother priests were an example to their flocks. The cookery, although plain, was s perfect, and the whisky divine. Dr Nedley, i of Dublin, was Father Healy's only sooiety rival as a sayer of good things. The doctor,, being a layman, had the advantage that he r could sing Irish songs of his own composition. Sometimes people used to invite the r two men to dinner on the same evening, which was a mistake, as they cancelled each other, and one genecally became extinguished ; and cross. However, Nedley once fell very ill,~ whereupon Healy nursed him. They afterwards became fast friends; indeed Dr Nedley attended the old priest in his last illness. —'Argus' correspondent.