Shay Healy (29 March 1943 – 9 April 2021) was an Irish songwriter, broadcaster and journalist. He is best known for his role as host of Nighthawks, a RTÉ Television chat show of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and for composing "What's Another Year", Ireland's winning entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1980.

Shay Healy was raised along with his five siblings in Sandymount in Dublin. His father, Seamus, was a civil servant and part-time stage actor who performed at the Abbey and Olympia theatres. His mother, Máirín Ní Shúilleabháin, was a singer of Irish traditional songs. She also wrote plays and stories and encouraged young Shay's early talent for writing. This led to his first appearance at the age of 15 on the Irish national radio station, Radió Éireann, reading a self-penned article.

Healy had a varied career, never focusing too intently on any one of his various professional interests. Of his tendency to diversify he once commented: "I know it infuriates some people when you don't pigeonhole yourself, but I don't take on anything that won't stand up to public scrutiny."

Healy first received attention as a performer of his own "songs of social significance" during the 1960s. Later he wrote comedy songs for Billy Connolly, including "The Orient Express-a tale of intrigue and cross dressing", "The Shitkickers Waltz", and "The Country & Western Supersong". Healy achieved his greatest success as a songwriter with "What's Another Year", which won the Eurovision Song Contest 1980. Over the course of the next 15 years, the song earned him a total of £250,000. In 1983 his song, "Edge of the Universe", sung by Linda Martin, was the overall winner of the Castlebar Song Contest. Under the name of Crack, he and Dave Pennefather released a parody song called "Silly Fellow", which was about Paul McCartney's arrest and jail experience in Japan. ^{[unreliable source?]} Healy and Pennefather also released a parody of Abba's song "Mamma Mia" that they called "Hey C'mere" and credited to Rubbish.

In 1977, Healy branched into musical theatre with the script, co-written with Niall Toibin, for a stage production entitled The King. This was a show based on the life and music of Elvis Presley and was premiered at the Cork Opera House two months after the singer's death. In contrast, Healy's rock opera, The Knowledge, failed to receive commercial backing and was premiered in Dundalk by an amateur group in January 1989.

Healy was more successful with his musical, The Wiremen, which received its premiere on 4 May 2005 at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre in a production by John McColgan and Moya Doherty that ran for six weeks. The Wiremen tells the story of the introduction of electricity into County Mayo during the 1950s. In March 2010 the show was revived in an amateur production by the Birr Stage Guild.

Healy joined RTÉ Television in 1963 as a trainee cameraman. Within five years he had moved to the other side of the lens with appearances on programmes such as Twenty Minutes With..., Ballad Sheet and Hoot'nany.

In the summer months of 1988 he hosted a series called The Dublin Village with Ingrid Miley it reran on Wednesday nights in 2005 and 2006 on RTE 2.