Healyite Nationalist

In Irish politics of the 1890s and 1900s, the Healyite Nationalists (also known as Independent Nationalists) were Irish Nationalist politicians who supported Timothy Healy MP.

Healy was the most outspoken member of the anti-Parnellite majority in the Irish Parliamentary Party. In the following decades he became estranged from the movement, setting up his own personal organisation as Member of Parliament (MP) for North Louth in 1892 together with five fellow MPs under the name "People's Rights Association". It was dubbed the 'clerical' party due to Healy's closeness to his clerical ally Cardinal Michael Logue.^[1]

The parliamentary election results for Ireland in the 1895 UK general election show eight Healyite Nationalist MPs returned to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. These, apart from Timothy Healy, included James Gibney, Maurice Healy, Arthur O'Connor and T. M. Sullivan.

In the following 1900 UK general election, Healyites stood in sixteen constituencies, of which seven were elected, John Cambell (Armagh South), John Hammond (Carlow), Peter Ffrench (Wexford South), James Carew, Maurice Healy, Timothy Healy and Patrick James Kennedy (Westmeath North). ^[2] One of those who failed to be elected was William Martin Murphy, a close associate of Healys'.

Then in the general election in 1906, this number fell to one, Timothy Healy himself, who later associated himself with the All-for-Ireland League.

Notes

References

• Callanan, Frank: T. M. Healy, pp. 422-441, Cork University Press (1996), ISBN 1-85918-172-4
• Walker, Brian M. (ed.): Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922, pp.151-162, Royal Irish Academy Press, Dublin (1978) ISBN 0-901714-12-7