Fermanagh writer Frank Galligan described the late Dermot Healy as a novelist and poet whose work focused on the border area of Fermanagh. Galligan noted Healy's memoir launch at Cootehill Arts Festival in 1997, where he spoke before heading to BBC Foyle.

Healy's short story 'Banished Misfortune' features McFarland, a fiddler from Fermanagh, on holiday in Galway during the 1970s. McFarland rejects talk of politics in a pub and vows to learn more local stories upon return. The family discovers their Fermanagh home burned down in their absence.

In Healy's 1984 novel Fighting With Shadows, set in the fictional Fermanagh border village of Fanacross, Frank Allen of the Allen family is shot three times in the head at his door. The family crosses between Fermanagh and Cavan. The narrative references local graves and Famine history.

Galligan recalled Healy's humour in The Bend for Home, which includes a birth scene at a neighbour's house involving a doctor from the pub and a midwife. Healy used local settings from Cavan and Sligo to explore broader themes.

Healy lived in Sligo. Galligan attended Healy's wedding, also joined by writers Pat McCabe and Roddy Doyle, and film director Neil Jordan. Jordan shared an anecdote of Healy demonstrating an optical illusion near Ben Bulben.