With a mighty bawl, John Patrick Healy – later to be known universally as Jackie Healy-Rae – arrived into this world on 9 March 1931, the first of six children born to small farmers Danny and Mary Healy of Rae (Reacaisleach) in the southern foothills of Mangerton Mountain, three miles from the village of Kilgarvan, County Kerry. It was Danny’s second marriage. His first wife died after the birth of their sixth child. He later met and married Mary Riordan of Coomlougha, on the Morley’s Bridge side of Kilgarvan. They lived off 65 acres of mainly coarse, boggy land – the English translation of the townland’s name is "rough grazing land near the little ford." Lest the notion go out that the Healy-Raes had delusions of grandeur and conferred on themselves a double-barrelled name, it should be noted that the Rae part of the surname derives from the townland. There were and still are several Healy families in the area and the Rae was added to avoid confusion. Jackie was five-and-a-half years of age when he first walked barefoot down the twisting road to school in Kilgarvan. (Extract from The Mighty Healy-Rae by Donal Hickey, published by Marino Books in 1997.)