menu_open Columnists
John Healy

John Healy

The Mayo News

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

COUNTY VIEW: When citizen volunteers rallied to the cause

Rarely, if ever, has there been such a national rallying to the cause as that which marked the formation of the country’s Local Defence Corps. As...

thursday 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Online scamming has grown up, and it’s pretty scary

COUNTY VIEW: Online scamming has grown up, and it’s pretty scary

There was a time when, every other week, most people’s email inbox would contain an unsolicited invitation to avail of an offer to become rich...

28.02.2025 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: The long odyssey of a Mayo emigrant

As a reminder of the global reach of The Mayo News , last week’s mail brought a missive from an Irish emigrant to South Africa. Maurice Egan, a...

09.02.2025 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Westmeath bachelors and Mayo brides

The expression ‘Westmeath bachelor’ has long found its way into popular parlance. The late Joe Dolan sung his praises. And every year, the...

01.02.2025 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: For XL bullies, it’s the long sleep

Stringent regulations against the ownership and control of dangerous dog breeds were introduced last year by the Department of Rural and Community...

26.01.2025 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Breakups don’t have to be forever

Sad to relate, your columnist’s long-term relationship came to an end before Christmas. And while it would be wrong to say it left no scars, in the...

19.01.2025 8

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: A record of the island lore and fairy legends of Mayo’s Clew Bay

Of the many fine books published last year – and it was a bumper crop – few will have as much Mayo resonance as ‘The Enchanted Bay: Tales and...

04.01.2025 6

The Mayo News

John Healy

Red card for the Greens

The fate of the Green Party in the general election is a salutary lesson for any small party contemplating an invitation to participate in...

19.12.2024 5

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Balla and Kiribati — the diverging fortunes of two communities

The last day of this month will mark the 25th anniversary of the ushering in of the new millennium, and nowhere was the occasion more fittingly...

14.12.2024 4

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: When Castlebar was the Irish Cheltenham

While history will always associate the Races of Castlebar with the ignominious rout of the Redcoats by General Humbert, less well known is that...

29.11.2024 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

Transfer uncertainty adds real intrigue to Mayo battle

Mayo’s voters go the polls on Friday in search of a General Election outcome more unpredictable than any before. With sixteen candidates in the...

27.11.2024 7

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Paris bells ring out again after France pulls together

A short five years since the iconic emblem of France lay shattered, gutted by fire, the restored Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral will reopen on...

22.11.2024 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Shamrock diplomacy and a whole new challenge

At least we know now who will be accepting the bowl of shamrock in the White House on St Patrick’s Day next. Just who gets to hand over the...

13.11.2024 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: A last sting of the Celtic Tiger

Those with a taste for black humour will be amused to learn that, 15 years on, the dark shadow of what was the Irish Nationwide Building Society...

07.11.2024 2

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: When charity begins at home

The recent travails of the Peter McVerry Trust have cast a timely light on the activities of the charities sector, a stratum of society that has...

30.10.2024 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: The perils of the blue beret brought home in Castlebar veteran's book

Whatever naïve ideas we may have held about the respected status of peacekeeping forces in the conflict zones of the world have been well shattered...

25.10.2024 3

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: From bakers to bankers — a Castlebar family’s service to the fledgling State

In the stirring struggle for independence of 100 years ago, there are many stories of individual and family heroics that are little more than...

18.10.2024 4

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Remembering the papal visit to Mayo and the transport fiasco

Forty-five years ago this week, the people of Mayo were still reflecting on the agony and the ecstasy of the visit to Knock Shrine of Pope John...

11.10.2024 10

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Empty words and a tragic death

If vacuous commentary were an Olympic sport, then the Minister for Health would surely be an odds-on contender for the gold medal. In a profession...

03.10.2024 4

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: The rocky road to the White House

With only six weeks to go to the US Presidential election, the only thing that remains certain is that it won’t finish on November 5. Already, the...

27.09.2024 4

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: The killing that started the Civil Rights movement

Two years ago, President Joe Biden signed into law the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, the statute to make lynching a federal hate crime. A few...

12.09.2024 1

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: White House battle thrown wide open

Politics is a strange game, and American politics is stranger than most. The battle for the White House has been suddenly thrown wide open, and a...

04.09.2024 3

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: The tidal wave at Westport Quay

In the 1993 issue of ‘Cathair na Mart’, the journal of the Westport Historical Society, the amazing story is told of the tidal wave that engulfed...

30.08.2024 20

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: The gay penguins that divided America

It began as what the authors claim was an innocuous children’s picture book 20 years ago. But now, two decades on, the story of the two gay...

22.08.2024 3

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: When tourism becomes too much of a good thing

There was a brief but interesting side discussion at a recent meeting of West Mayo Municipal District. The Louisburgh councillor, Chris Maxwell,...

15.08.2024 2

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Paying the Sinn Féin piper

It’s not possible to please all of the people all of the time, a truth which means that, in laying out their financial strategies, political...

08.08.2024 3

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: Losing the road-deaths battle

According to Garda statistics, we are well on the road to reaching the highest death toll on Irish roads over the past 25 years. Despite intensive...

01.08.2024 5

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: The Galway priest and the Argentine scandal

Inside the main gate of the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires stands the imposing monument marking the burial place of Admiral William Brown,...

25.07.2024 2

The Mayo News

John Healy

COUNTY VIEW: So how many houses is enough?

If you feel confused at the blizzard of predictions about the national housing demand, there is no need to feel humble. In the welter of...

18.07.2024 2

The Mayo News

John Healy