At Chapelizod, outside Dublin, complications of jaundice, dropsy and
heart disease brought Death last week to a bearded, brilliant
gentleman with a testy tongue, Timothy Michael Healy, first Governor
General of the Irish Free State, in his 76th year. Three years ago
failing health made him resign the Governor-Generalship. Fortnight
ago his condition became critical, relatives were summoned. Tim Healy
died in the night. Even 15 years
ago if anyone had seriously suggested in the House of Commons that
Tim Healy was destined to become His Majesty's Representative in
Ireland, laughter would have shaken the chandeliers. Timothy Michael
Healy was born in Bantry, County Cork, in 1855, son of the local
poorhouse guardian. His earliest memories* were of creaking farm carts
marked with rude white crosses, piled high with corpses of the famine
on their way to common burial in the lime pits. These were not memories
to make any boy a loyal British citizen. At the age of 14 he had taught
himself shorthand. At 17 he made his way to England, worked as a
railway clerk, a reporter. He first attracted attention by the
brilliance of the political articles which he sent to his uncle's
Dublin paper, The Nation. After his return to Ireland he became private secretary to his hero, the
late great spade-bearded Charles Parnell. Home Rulers enthusiastically
elected him to Parliament at the age of 25. At 28 he was arrested and
imprisoned for making seditious speeches. With Parnell he toured the U. S. several times, collecting money from
fervent Fenians for The Cause, but he finally broke with Parnell after
the latter's life with Kitty O'Shea had become an international
Victorian scandal. In the House, on the lecture platform, Tim Healy was known as a master
of invective. Time & again he was dismissed from Parliament for
abusive language. Each time enthusiastic Irish majorities voted him in
again. “Mr. Speaker, if the noble Marquess thinks he is going to bully us with
his high and mighty Cavendish ways, all I can tell him is he will find
himself knocked into a cocked hat in a jiffy, and we will have to put
him to the necessity of wiping the blood of all the Cavendishes from
his noble nose a good many times before he disposes of us.” “A fine national anthem we'll have,” chortled Testy Tim when he heard
that Ulster was to be left out of the Irish Free State. ” 'God Bless
the Greater Part of Ireland.' ” For all his intense nationalism, Tim Healy generally kept out of jail,
never joined the Sinn Fein, and thoroughly disapproved of the Easter
Rebellion of 1916. It has been said that picking Tim Healy for first
Governor General of the Free State in 1922 was the most brilliant
political stroke that Prime Minister Bonar Law ever made. King George
would never have approved anyone connected with Sinn Fein. Catholic
Ireland would not have accepted anyone who was not a confirmed
Home-Ruler. When the Countess of Oxford was a little girl she was solemnly
introduced to the late great William Ewart Gladstone. “He was quite nice,” said candid Margot afterwards, “but you see Mr.
Healy has really spoiled me for all other men.”
