Michael Healy was born in Dublin. He became a postulant Dominican lay brother in the Dominican novitiate, Tallaght for a period.  Two of his brothers were in printing, and having a gift for drawing, he joined the Metropolitan School of Art in 1897. In 1988 he moved to the RHA  school, where he won first prize for a drawing from life.  He had his first drawings published in September of that year, in The Irish Rosary.  A year later, the editor of the Irish Rosary arranged for him to go to Florence to work under de Bacci-Venuti, and he studied murals, stained glass and the paintings of Piero della Francesca while there.

He returned to Ireland in 1901 and taught briefly at Dominican College, Newbridge.  Shortly afterwards ,he was invited to join on Tur Gloine , where he studied under A.E. Childs.  Here his 'strong line' in drawing detected early by Hughes, found a proper medium of expression.  His first work in stained glass is in Loughrea Cathederal where you will find many examples of his work. His stained glass work is found in England, America, Newfoundland and New Zealand.

Healy is remembered mainly for his distinctive stained glass, where he developed the process of aciding in an individual way, and for his wash-drawings of Dublin Characters.  He exhibited oils too in the RHA, from 1912 -1914, was represented in the Arts & Craftss Exhibtion in Dublin in 1917, and sent the window, "St. Patrick at Slane' to Paris in 1922.  He also exhibited in Brussels in 1939 at the Irish Exhibition.