[citation needed] Healy was a journalist with The Irish Times newspaper, writing the Backbencher column in the 1960s and 1970s.
[citation needed] Healy's book No One Shouted Stop (The Death of an Irish Town), published in 1968, chronicled the economic and social decline of rural life in the west of Ireland in a time of widespread poverty and mass emigration.
He also wrote Nineteen Acres on the history and lifestyle of his family, who were small farmers.
[2] Healy's support for the latter caused considerable controversy among his fellow Irish Times journalists, many of whom were outspoken opponents of Haughey.
In March 2007, a RTÉ radio journalist visited Charlestown and assessed the changes in Healy's hometown in the forty years since the writing of his book.