Healy, Michael
Michael Healy (1873-1941) was born in Dublin into abject poverty and in his late twenties had the good fortune to be recommended to Sarah Purser when she was looking for new recruits for her nascent An Túr Gloine studio, although he had yet to work in the craft. Throughout his near four-decade career at the studio he created around one hundred windows for churches throughout the island of Ireland, for England, and for as far away as Newfoundland and New Zealand. A skilled draughtsman and technical innovator, his windows convey everything from austere majesty to tender humanity, often revelling in beguiling narrative detail. Reclusive by nature, Healy was a habitual recorder, mainly in rapid pencil and watercolour impressions, of Dubliners going about their daily business, often done on his lunch break from An Túr Gloine.
Source: Michael Healy 1873–1941, An Tur Gloine’s Stained Glass Pioneer by David Caron (Four Courts Press, 2023).
