Maurice Healy, Irish nationalist politician, lawyer and Member of Parliament (MP), is born in Bantry, County Cork, on January 3, 1859. As a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), he is returned to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland four times between 1885 and 1918.

Healy is one of twins, the third son born to Maurice, a Poor Law Union clerk, and Eliza (née Sullivan) Healy. His mother dies during the birth. It is said that the nurse places him in his brother Tim‘s arms and said, “This little boy has no mother now and you will have to be a mother to him.” As he grows up, he becomes very close to his elder brother. The orphaned children are effectively raised by their maternal grandmother, Jane Sullivan. The family moves to Lismore, County Waterford, where he is educated at the local Christian Brothers school. Both brothers marry Sullivans who are first cousins to their husbands and to each other.

Admitted as a solicitor in 1882, Healy practises as such and is returned to parliament four times, first as a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party for Cork City from 1885 to 1900, in which year standing as a Healyite nationalist he is defeated by William O’Brien in a bitter campaign. He is returned again for Cork City in May 1909 to January 1910.

In March 1910, Healy is returned to parliament representing North East Cork, this time as a supporter and member of William O’Brien’s All-for-Ireland League (AFIL) party. From the December 1910 United Kingdom general election until the 1918 United Kingdom general election, he again represents Cork City. He is generally considered one of the finest Irish lawyers of his generation, and exceptionally conscientious in his handling of a case.

Healy’s force in parliament is land law. He is a close confidant of his brother Tim and although more retiring and stolid than his better-known elder brother, he is considered the more intelligent and often acts as a counterbalance to his brother’s emotionality. On the outbreak of World War I in 1914 a son of each enlists in one of the Irish Divisions.

Healy’s uncle, Timothy Daniel Sullivan, is also a member of parliament, as is his oldest brother, Thomas Joseph Healy and father-in-law Alexander Martin Sullivan. His son, also called Maurice (1887-1943), educated at Clongowes Wood College stands unsuccessfully as an AFIL candidate for West Waterford in December 1910, is a regular contributor (including much satirical verse) to the O’Brienite Cork Free Press.

Maurice (junior) moves to England after the founding of the Irish Free State where he is both a successful lawyer and a broadcaster for the BBC during the early years of World War II. He writes the well-known legal memoir The Old Munster Circuit and the popular Stay Me with Flagons: A Book about Wine and Other Things.

Healy dies at home in Temple Hill, Ballintemple, Cork, County Cork, on November 9, 1923, and is buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery.