The sudden death of John Healy in Dublin recently has left an immense void in the lives of his many Dublin friends and, above all, in those of his family.
We met in the B.Comm. course in UCD. He was a genuine friend to all and memorable as an excellent speaker, correspondence secretary of the L & H, and secretary of the Commerce Society (his witty minutes caused many a laugh); as member of the Students Representative Council; as editor of the National Student; and as a leading light in the Dramatic Society, where his own plays were produced.
A strong swimmer, he competed for college, and was a regular in the Liffey Swim before he left to work abroad. He was also a member of the UCD Golf Club.
UCD made him an intrepid traveller. He was one of the first to visit war-ravaged Europe in the late 1940s, encouraged by the enthusiasm of the late John E. Doyle (our lecturer in Spanish). Ibiza, by boat from Barcelona, became his home from home during college holidays.
Spain then was unbelievably isolated from the world, except Ireland, so he was visiting a remote, broken country, endeavouring to recover from its civil war while enduring the hardship of an United Nations embargo. There were no tourists. In a two-month visit, a mutual friend and the writer only met Irish or English speakers in the Irish Legation in Madrid and in Gibraltar, to enter which we had to wait a week in Algeciras for a visa.
His love of Spain stood him in great stead, as, soon after he qualified as a chartered accountant, he and his wife Maureen (nee Crowe) left for Peru, where he became internal auditor in the W. R. Grace group. Thus began a South American career for some 15 years in Lima, Peru and Santiago, Chile, until they and their children moved to Wilton, Connecticut, due to civil unrest in Peru.
In New York, still working for Grace, he got an M.B.A. from Fordham University. Then, after a period with First Boston Bank, he became a world traveller in earnest, taking up accounting assignments for the US State Department and the World Bank. He was three years in Mogadishu, whence he and Maureen were evacuated by air when the UN operation began - leaving furniture and wedding presents behind. Later he worked in Pakistan and Uganda. In the latter he was ambushed, and he had photographs of his bullet-riddled Jeep and his swimming towel as souvenirs.
He never ceased to love travel. Last year alone he celebrated Christmas with the family in Wilton, New Year in Florida, was in Buenos Aires in January with his son John and new grand-daughter Lucile, later in Greece and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and then in Dublin for the 50th reunion of the St Mary's College Class of 1947. A night or so later, he and Maureen had a small dinner party in Dalkey for some UCD friends and their wives. Little did we realise that he had a few days to live. His next assignment was to be in Uzbekistan, but he died in Dublin delivering his contract to Federal Express for delivery to Washington DC.
His friends will all miss his cheery call out of the blue convening a get-together. He never accepted, or felt it relevant, that the UCD B.Comms of 1950 did not stay in constant contact over the years. He expected us there whenever he returned, and we were, and thus had reunions at least yearly when arrived on his visits to Dublin and to his mother in Offaly, who died a year ago.
The loss felt by his friends is immense. However, it pales in comparison with that of his widow Maureen, sons John and Edward, daughter Deirdre, sister Mary Moore (Rhode, Co Offaly) and brother Fr Austin, CSSp, his grandchildren Patrick and Lucille and his children-in-law, all of whom carry the real load of his passing.
Ar dheis De go raibh a anam.
J.C.O'S.