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(O)Healy, Hely, (Kerrisk)
Though a genuine Gaelic name, Healy is very rarely found nowadays with its proper prefix O; there is no entry in current directories under O'Healy, O'Hely or O'Haly, forms which were quite usual up to the end of the seventeenth century. Healy, however, is one of the commonest names in Ireland having forty-seven place in the list of the hundred commonest surnames, with a total number of persons so called of nearly thirteen thousand. One set, in Irish O hElidhe, derived from eilidhe (claimant), possessed a territory at the foot of the Curlew Mountains on the western shore of Lough Arrow, I.e. the corner of County Sligo lying between Counties Mayo and Roscommon. The first of the frequent references to the family by the Four Masters is to Dermot O'Healy who died in 1309 - he is described as "a princely farmer, the best of his time". A greater number, however, belong to the Munster sept. In Munster it is O hEalaigh - the, possibly from the word ealadhach (ingenious). This name was formerly correctly rendered as O'Healihy in English, and so it appears in the seventeenth century records. e.g. those reciting the transfer of their estates to the Earl of Clancarty after the Restoration. Though dispossessed, the O'Healihys remained on the lands and it was one of those who, having become a Protestant, was created Earl of Donoughmore. This title was taken from the place Donoghmore in the barony of Muskerry, Co. Cork, which was the centre of the territory possessed by the sept. the influential family of Hely d'Oissel of Normandy, ranked among the nobility of France, is descended from Peter O'Hely, a Jacobite exile.
Several places in Ireland perpetuate the name Healy: Ballyhely in Co. Sligo was the seat of the O'Healys of Lough Arrow, mentioned above. It is curious that four such place names (three Ballyhealys and one Healysland) are to be found in Wexford, a county not specially associated with the septs of O'Healy, either traditionally or by reason of present population distribution. No less than five of the Donoughmore Helys (who assumed the additional name of Hutchinson) were considered worthy of a place in the Dictionary of National Biography, several of whom, notably John Hely-Hutchinson (1724-1794), Provost of Trinity College, were advocates of Catholic Emancipation. Four other Healys have a lasting place in Irish history; Patrick O'Healy, Franciscan, last Bishop of Mayo before it was united to Tuam, who in 1579 was tortured and martyred; John Healy (1841-1918), Archbishop of Tuam, author of Insula Sanctorum, etc.; the famous humorist, Father Hames Healy (1824-1894); and Timothy Healy (1855-1931), universally known as Tim Healy, the irrepressible Irish Nationalist M.P., who finally became a most successful first Governor-General of the Irish Free State. James Healy (1830-1900), has been described as the first black American bishop. Actually he was only one quarter black, his father, Michael Healy, being an Irish immigrant and his mother a mulatto slave.
In the Tralee and Killarney areas of Co. Kerry Healy is usually a synonym of Kerrisk or Kerrish, in Irish Mac Fhiarais I.e son of Ferris, the first to be so called being the son of one Pierce O'Healy. Woulfe thinks the eponymous ancestor was Ferris O'Helie. In Co.. Clare Mac Fhiarais is anglicized Kierse.