The Healy-Raes first appeared on the national scene nearly three decades ago, during the 1997 general election. Jackie, for decades Fianna Fáil’s machine man supreme in Kerry, had been denied the chance to run for the Dáil after the retirement of a sitting TD. He took the rejection badly and ran as an Independent, or rather as “Independent Fianna Fáil”.
Squat, becapped, ruddy-faced and largely indecipherable to non-Kerry speakers, the sophisticates from headquarters didn’t believe he could possibly get elected, not least because, as one of them subsequently remarked, it looked like he combed his hair with a pork chop. But Jackie’s singular presentation belied the formidable combination of a keen political intelligence and an ability to connect with voters. His campaign began to take off. It became a thing for young Kerry women to kiss him (yes). A staffer was sent down to investigate. “This f**ker,” he reported back after a night on the tiles in Killarney with the candidate, “is going to get elected.”
Jackie did indeed get elected in 1997, and went on to cut a deal to support the minority government of Bertie Ahern in return for various promises for public spending in his constituency. In a speech announcing his support for Ahern as taoiseach in the Dáil, Jackie enumerated the demands for his constituency which he had been promised would be looked after by the incoming government – including a replacement for the Pretty Polly tights factory, a new pier for Cromane, the resumption of live cattle exports, cheaper car insurance – before concluding with some spirit: “Do not write me off, I am warning you!”
It has been long rumoured around Leinster House that the two were not especially close, and Michael was said to be interested in joining the Enda Kenny-led minority in 2016, only for Danny to nix the idea
Nobody wrote Jackie off and he continued in the Dáil, wheedling favours and (above all) claiming credit on Radio Kerry for anything that happened in the constituency, insisting that it was as a result of his interventions, and thus driving local Fianna Fáilers, especially Kerry’s cabinet minister John O’Donoghue, around the bend.
It was all great gas, and the people of Kerry were sufficiently contented to elect him again in 2002 and 2007, before his son Michael succeeded in 2011. Michael’s brother Danny joined him in 2016, and the two boys have held the two seats since.
It has been long rumoured around Leinster House that the two were not especially close, and Michael was said to be interested in joining the Enda Kenny-led minority in 2016, only for Danny to nix the idea. Shane Ross, effectively the leader of the Independents then, recalled in his memoir that Michael’s “biggest problem” was Danny, whose “inane interventions on nearly every subject sometimes make Michael look like a clown by association”. The brothers remained in opposition until Micheál Martin and Simon Harris came calling in early 2025.
Michael did get his ministerial deal over the line with Danny then, but it unravelled when the pressure of the fuel protests became too much in April. He resigned as a junior minister, declaring, “I felt this was the right decision to make, to stand with the people of Kerry and not to be part of a Government that I wasn’t happy with … The Healy-Raes always gauge what we think is right and myself and my brother – this was a decision that we had to do on behalf of the people that are our bosses.”
Asked whether was bounced into the decision by his brother, Michael replied with some vehemence: “Oh absolutely not!”
But we now know, after the extraordinary interview he gave Radio Kerry this week, that all that stuff he told us after he resigned was actually horse manure. He left Government because he was indeed bounced into it by Danny, who “pulled [him] overboard”.
It’s hard to escape feeling that Michael now regrets this and would like to be back in Government. This is not a prospect that anyone I spoke to this week around the senior levels of the administration thinks is realistic. The Healy-Rae organisation, meanwhile, seems irrevocably sundered. Perhaps the younger generation – two of Danny’s children are councillors, as is Michael’s son Jackie – will repair the breach in time. But family gatherings in Kilgarvan might be a little fraught for a while.
If everyone is concentrating on the local, who is looking out for the bigger picture? Who makes the arguments for the national interest?
Independent politicians have always been part of the Irish political tradition, but their proliferation in recent decades has been one of the most significant trends as politics here has changed and splintered. There are currently 15 Independent TDs in the Dáil, making them the fourth largest cohort after the three big parties.
The political and electoral model for most is simple: prioritise the local and amplify the sense that whatever government is in power, it has maliciously ignored the needs of the constituency. And then, if the opportunity presents itself, support the government in return for special favours. Be the man who delivers for the constituency. Entering government last year, the Healy-Raes declared their priorities to be “Kerry, Kerry, Kerry”.
This is all very well, and lots of voters like it. But if everyone is concentrating on the local, who is looking out for the bigger picture? Who makes the arguments for the national interest? There is simply no space in this type of politics for governments to make difficult, far-sighted decisions that will benefit the country in the longer-term. There is only room for me, me, me, Kerry, Kerry, Kerry.
[ Who are the Healy-Raes? A guide to Ireland’s biggest political dynastyOpens in new window ]
One of the greatest Irish political scientists, the late Peter Mair, despaired of what he called this “amoral localism”, and warned of its dire consequences not just for the quality of governance but for our democracy. One of his predecessors, Basil Chubb, feared the same impulses would make the country ungovernable. Which would not be great gas at all.
If nobody is making the case for good government, we are unlikely to get it.
