Editing Tim Healy (politician) (section)

==Political career==
In parliament, Healy did not physically cut an imposing figure but impressed by the application of sheer intelligence, diligence and volatile use of speech when he achieved the ''Healy Clause'' in the [[Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881]] which provided that no further rent should in future be charged on tenant's improvements. By the mid-1880s Healy had already acquired a reputation for a scurrilousness of tone. He married his cousin Eliza Sullivan in 1882, they had three daughters and three sons and he enjoyed a happy and intense family life, closely interlinked both by friendship and intermarriage with the Sullivans of west Cork.{{sfn|Callanan|1996}}

Through his reputation as a friend of the farmers, after having been imprisoned for four months following an agrarian case, and backed by Parnell, he was elected in a [[Monaghan (UK Parliament constituency)|Monaghan]] by-election in June 1883, deemed to be the climax in the Healy–Parnell relationship. In 1884 he was called to the [[King's Inns|Irish bar]] as a barrister (in 1889 to the inner bar as [[King's Counsel]], in London in 1910). His reputation allowed him to build an extensive legal practice, particularly in land cases. He was elected for [[South Londonderry (UK Parliament constituency)|South Londonderry]] in 1885, but lost to a [[Liberal Unionist]] in 1886. In the [[1887 North Longford by-election]], he was returned unopposed.

Prompted by the depression in the prices of dairy products and cattle in the mid-1880 as well as bad weather for a number of years, many tenant farmers unable to pay their rents were left under the threat of eviction. Healy devised a strategy to secure a reduction in rent from the landlords which became known as the [[Plan of Campaign]], organised in 1886 amongst others by [[Timothy Harrington]].