[Healy, Francis J. (Cobh)].

The Constitution, Rules & Regulations of the General Council of the Bar of Ireland [Francis J, Healy’s personal copy with his name and date in ink on titlepage: “Francis J.Healy, Munster, Cork, 1915”].

[Cork], no year [c.1915]. Duodecimo. 16 pages. Original Softcover. Binding stained. Rusty staples. Very Rare, rather ephemeral pamphlet which usually had perished. The Constitution was adopted in February 1914. Significant provenance of this publication by Terence MacSwiney’s Defense Solicitor.

Healy, Francis (‘Frank’) Jerome (1869–1931), barrister, was born 29 August 1869 in Cork, son of Jeremiah Healy, victualler, and Mary Theresa Healy (née Burk), who died when Frank was six weeks old. He was educated at St Stanislaus College, Tullamore, King’s Co. (Offaly), and at Clongowes Wood. Called to the bar in 1893, he joined the Munster circuit and resided in his hometown of Queenstown (Cobh), Co. Cork. He was a fervent nationalist, apparently influenced from a young age by Fenian tales told to him by his family’s neighbour, the poet and novelist Canon Sheehan (qv). From about 1909 to 1915 he was grand master of the Irish-American Alliance of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Politically he was a constitutional nationalist and supported William O’Brien (qv) and his All-for-Ireland League, although he combined this with sympathy for Sinn Féin and strong pro-labour views. He achieved some renown for his defence of leading political figures, including Jim Larkin (qv). In February 1916 he defended Terence MacSwiney (qv), then deputy commander of the Volunteers in Cork, against charges of sedition. As there were six nationalist magistrates in attendance, he succeeded in getting MacSwiney off with a nominal fine, to the annoyance of the unionist crown solicitor, D. H. A. Wynne. A few months later (May 1916) Healy was himself arrested and imprisoned in connection with the rising, in which he appears to have had no part. The Irish-American Alliance’s military wing, the Hibernian Rifles, had taken part in the rising, and this was possibly a factor in his arrest. He was held in Richmond barracks before being incarcerated in Knutsford prison, England, where his fellow prisoner Joseph Connolly (qv) found him ‘kindly, a good companion but brooded a good deal’ (Gaughan, 119). He was older, wealthier, and less able to adapt to prison life than the other internees but was not held long. His was one of twelve names on an ill-researched MI5 special list of ‘dangerous men’, but his kinsman T. M. Healy (qv) managed to convince the authorities of his inoffensiveness and got him out on parole after a few months.

His prison credentials helped persuade William O’Brien to select him as the All-for-Ireland League candidate for Cork West in a by-election in November 1916 after the death of the O’Brienite member, James Gilhooly (qv). Healy was presented as a prisoners’ candidate whose election would bring general amnesty, but the selection of an outsider from Queenstown caused resentment among local party workers, not helped by the fact that Healy was refused permission to return home by the crown and sat out the campaign in Bournemouth, where the Cork Examiner reported him to be enjoying six-course dinners in a first-class hotel. An independent All-for-Ireland candidate, Michael Shipsey, entered the race and this persuaded John Redmond (qv) to run Daniel O’Leary (1878–1954) as the nationalist party candidate. The O’Brienites refused to support abstentionism, which (together with the revelation that Healy had written to the home secretary promising good behaviour if he was allowed back to campaign) alienated Sinn Féin, who issued a statement repudiating him and advising supporters to vote against the League. Healy therefore took neither the separatist vote nor the approximately 500 unionist votes that used to go to Gilhooly; O’Leary was elected with a majority of 116, though he only began campaigning nine days before the poll. This election spelled the end for O’Brien’s party.

Healy’s response was to shift his full support to Sinn Féin, for whom he voted in 1918. In January 1919 he seconded a motion at a public meeting in Cork that the Irish had the same right to object to a British flag over Dublin as Lloyd George had to a German flag over London. His home was an IRA safe house during the war of independence and the civil war, in which he supported the anti-treaty side. Disillusionment with the copper-fastening of partition soured his final years. He died at home in Wilmount Castle, Healy’s Road, Cobh, on 7 August 1931 and was survived by his wife, the former Ethyl O’Neill (m. 1910), and by two daughters.

A studious, erudite man, Healy was for many years a member of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, where he pursued his interest in biography and genealogy, contributing articles on local Cork figures such as Sir Teague O’Regan and Thomas Crofton Croker (qv). For the Cork Ivernian Journal he wrote on the Scots of ancient Ireland. His writings are characterised by clarity of expression and citing of rare sources. (Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography)

• Keywords: Catalogue Irish History Three – From Famine to Free State · Catalogue One – History of Law · Cobh · Cork · Irish History – Rare · Irish History in the 20th century · Irish History of Law · Irish Law · Irish Legal History · Law · Law – Rare
• Inventory Number: 31768AB

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