Irish Examiner view: The death of Shay Healy

The former RTÉ broadcaster and Eurovision winning songwriter could easily be described as the very epitome of craic

Shay Healy died aged 78 after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. Picture: Marc O'Sullivan

Though he was more than happy, and determined, to be many things Shay Healy, who has died aged 78 after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease, may not have realised he was a kind of Rosetta Stone too. 

He was once invoked as an example to try to explain one of the enduring mysteries that separate the Irish and what might be called the world of the Reformation.