Timothy Michael Healy - Governor-General, Additional Reading

Irish Nationalist leader, born in Bantry, Co Cork, S Ireland. He sat in parliament (1880–1918), headed in 1890 the revolt against Parnell, and became an Independent Nationalist. He was the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State (1922–8).

Timothy Michael Healy, KC (17 May 1855 – 26 March 1931) was one of the 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 until the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922. He served as first Governor-General of the Irish Free State.

Born in Bantry, County Cork, Healy worked as a parliamentary correspondent for The Nation newspaper before becoming Member of Parliament for Wexford in 1880.

Healy became an outspoken member of the anti-Parnell majority in the party. By the 1910s, it looked as though Healy was a maverick on the fringes of Irish nationalism.

Governor-General

Styles of Timothy Healy, Governor-General of the Irish Free State
Reference style	His Excellency
spoken style	Your Excellency
Alternative style	none

However he came back to prominence when, on the urging of the Provisional Government of W.T. Cosgrave, the British government recommended to King George V that Healy be appointed the first 'Governor-General of the Irish Free State', a new office of representative of the Crown created in the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) and introduced by a combination of the Irish Free State Constitution and Letters Patent from the King.

Initially the Irish government under W. Cosgrave wished for Healy to reside in a new small residence, but when facing death threats from the IRA, he was moved as a temporary measure into the Viceregal Lodge, the former 'out of season' residence of the Lord Lieutenant, the former representative of the Crown before 1922.

Healy proved an able Governor-General, possessing a degree of political skill and contacts in Britain that the new Irish government initially lacked.

Unlike his successors, Healy possessed a three-fold role as Governor-General. That role of being the United Kingdom government's representative, and acting on its advice, was abandoned throughout the Commonwealth in the mid 1920s as a result of a Commonwealth Conference decision, leaving him and his successors exclusively as the King's representative and nominal head of the Irish executive.

Though Healy seemed to believe that he had been awarded the governor-generalship for life, the Executive Council of the Irish Free State decided in 1927 that the term of office of governors-general would be five years.

Preceded by: —

Governor-General of the Irish Free State 1922–1927

Succeeded by: James McNeill

Additional Reading

Frank Callanan, T.