Timothy Michael Healy

Timothy Michael Healy, KC (May 17, 1855–March 26, 1931) was one of the most brilliant and most controversial of Irish politicians, with a career that spanned the period from Charles Stewart Parnell's leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 1880s to the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922.

Nationalist Split

Initially a passionate supporter of Parnell, he became disenchanted with his leader. During the O'Shea divorce controversy, when it was revealed that the party leader had been having a lengthy relationship with the wife of a fellow MP whom he later married and was the father of three of her children, Healy became his sternest and most sharp-spoken critic. When Parnell asked his colleagues at one party meeting "Who is the master of the party?", Healy famously retorted with another question "Aye, but who is the mistress of the party?" - a comment which almost led him to come to blows with Parnell. The rift prompted a nine-year old Dublin schoolboy, James Joyce, to pen an essay called "Et Tu, Healy?".

Related Topics:
Dublin - James Joyce

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Healy became an outspoken member of the anti-Parnell majority in the party. In following decades, he became estranged from the movement, setting up his own personal organisation as MP for North Louth since 1892. By the 1910s, it looked as though Healy was a maverick on the fringes of Irish nationalism. However he came into notoriety again when returned in the January 1910 general election in alliance with William O'Brien's All-for Ireland League, be it that their coelescence based largely on their common opposition to the Irish party. He lost his seat in the following December 1910 election, but rejoined the O'Brienites taking the 1911 North-East Cork by-election. His reputation was not enhanced by his representing of William Martin Murphy, the Catholic industrialist who sparked the 1913 Dublin Lockout.

Related Topics:
William O'Brien - 1913 - Dublin Lockout

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~