Life
1918-1963; b. Dublin; Abbey and Radio Éireann actor; stage-manager at Gate Theatre; plays include Thy Dear Father (Abbey, 30 Aug. 1943); The Black Stranger (Players’ Theatre, Cork [Cork Opera House], 26 Feb. 1945), a play about the Great Famine produced for the centenary; Healy played the Jesuit director in Hugh Leonard’s Stephen D (1962), and died suddenly in the theatre while playing the same part in London in 1963. DIW DIL
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Criticism
Robert Hogan, ‘Introduction’, Seven Irish Plays (Minnesota UP 1967).
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Commentary
Margaret Kelleher [Mater Dei], lecturing at the Yeats Summer School, remarks that The Black Stranger was well-received, and that reviewers of the time were ‘particularly drawn to what is a central preoccupation of Healy’s, ‘the quest for emigration’; ‘Patrick’s argument is that by emigrating, the son will make the famine “matter” since “none will be left to carry on when things get right again”.’ (Report The Irish Times, 8 Aug. 1996.)
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