He is best known for his role as host of Nighthawks, a RTÉ Television chat show of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and for composing "What's Another Year", Ireland's winning entry in the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest.
[6] Later he wrote comedy songs for Billy Connolly,[3] including "The Orient Express-a tale of intrigue and cross dressing", "The Shitkickers Waltz", and "The Country & Western Supersong".
Under the name of Crack, he and Dave Pennefather released a parody song called "Silly Fellow", which was about Paul McCartney's arrest and jail experience in Japan.
This was a show based on the life and music of Elvis Presley and was premiered at the Cork Opera House two months after the singer's death.
[11] In contrast, Healy's rock opera, The Knowledge, failed to receive commercial backing and was premiered in Dundalk by an amateur group in January 1989.
[12] Healy was more successful with his musical, The Wiremen, which received its premiere on 4 May 2005 at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre in a production by John McColgan and Moya Doherty that ran for six weeks.
[16] In January 1992, the show became embroiled in political controversy as a result of Healy's interview with former Fianna Fáil Justice Minister Seán Doherty.
During the interview, Doherty revealed that some members of the cabinet with whom he served in 1982 had been aware of his order to illegally tap the phones of a number of Irish journalists.
Healy's two films featured an actor, Chris Burke, who was born with dwarfism, and a singer, Ronan Tynan, whose legs were amputated when he was twenty.
[5] Among the other TV programmes Healy presented were Reach For The Stars (1971), Hullaballoo (1977), The Birthday Show (1993-1995), Beastly Behaviour (1998-1999), Ireland's Greatest Hits (2001) and A Little Bit Country (2006).
In the early 1960s, Healy became Folk Correspondent for Spotlight, an Irish pop music weekly, and he continued to write for the magazine until its demise in the mid-1970s.