Cahir Healy (2 December 1877 – 8 February 1970) was an Irish

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

Background

Born in

Mountcharles Mountcharles () is a village and townland (of 650 acres) in the south of County Donegal, Ireland. It lies 6 km from Donegal Town on the Killybegs road ( N56). It is situated in the civil parish of Inver and the historic barony of Banagh. ...

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrcon ...

, he became a journalist working on various local papers. He joined

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gr ...

on its foundation in 1905. He later campaigned against the inclusion of

County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of 1,691 km2 (653 sq mi) and has a population of 61,805 ...

and

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. It is no longer used as an administrative division for local government but retai ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

, arguing that they had an

Irish nationalist Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of c ...

majority (see

Partition of Ireland The partition of Ireland ( ga, críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. ...

). He was interned with 300 others on the prison ship

HMS Argenta HMS ''Argenta'' (originally the American cargo ship SS ''Argenta'') was a prison ship of the British Royal Navy. Construction The two deck steamer was laid down in July 1917 by the National Shipbuilding Company of Orange, Texas as Hull No. 245. ...

for eighteen months from July 1922. Healy is quoted on the reasons for his arrest and internment: "All my life, I have been a man of peace. It is not, therefore, because they feared that I would disturb the peace of Northern Ireland that they dragged me away from my wife and family, but for political reasons. I have been engaged in preparing the case for the inclusion of these areas (Fermanagh and Tyrone) in the Free State. To get me out of the way, local politicians urged my arrest." Healy was elected in the

1922 UK general election The 1922 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 15 November 1922. It was won by the Conservative Party, led by Bonar Law, which gained an overall majority over the Labour Party, led by J. R. Clynes, and a divided Liberal Party. ...

to represent Fermanagh and Tyrone as a Nationalist Party MP, but with the support of Sinn Féin. Healy was re-elected in 1923, but remained in custody until February 1924 and was prohibited from entering the western part of County Fermanagh (he did not defend his seat). Instead, he was elected to represent the seat in the

Northern Ireland House of Commons The House of Commons of Northern Ireland was the lower house of the Parliament of Northern Ireland created under the ''Government of Ireland Act 1920''. The upper house in the bicameral parliament was called the Senate. It was abolished wi ...

in the 1925 election, but not taking his seat until 1927 due to the Nationalist abstentionist policy. In 1928 he became a founder of the National League of the North. In 1929, with the break-up of the large Fermanagh and Tyrone constituency, he switched to sit for the new seat of South Fermanagh. In a 1931 by-election he was again elected for Fermanagh and Tyrone to the British Parliament, but stood down again in 1935. Healy became an

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

official but continued to write, his output including journalism,

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

and

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

. He was interned by the United Kingdom government for a year during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, under

Defence Regulation 18B Defence Regulation 18B, often referred to as simply 18B, was one of the Defence Regulations used by the British Government during and before the Second World War. The complete name for the rule was Regulation 18B of the Defence (General) Regula ...

. In 1950 he was elected to the British House of Commons for a third time, on this occasion representing Fermanagh and South Tyrone. He finally sat in the British Parliament in 1952, and held the seat until he stood down in 1955. He left the Northern Ireland House of Commons in 1965, by which point he was the

Father of the House Father of the House is a title that has been traditionally bestowed, unofficially, on certain members of some legislatures, most notably the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. In some legislatures the title refers to the longest continuously ...

. Cahir Healy was a leader of northern Nationalists and was a self-educated man who made major contributions to Ireland's cultural and literary heritage. He died on 8 February 1970.

References

Obituary
in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

''
Biographies of Members of the Northern Ireland House of Commons
*Phoenix, Eamon, ''Conflicts in the North of Ireland, 1900-200'', (2010), Four Courts Press Ltd, Dublin, Ireland ISBN 978-1-84682-189-9

External links