Dear Claire, I think I may be able to help you quite a lot. I am descended from Catherine Higgins, sister to your great-great-grandmother. In the course of the past ten years of trial-and-error, seat-of-the-pants genealogical research, I have located over a thousand of your cousins--although some of them are pretty distant, given that the connection stems from the turn of the 19th century. Through our common ancestral line, you are also related by blood or by marriage to the Reynolds (McRannall) family of Longford, once the local chieftains in the Drumlish area--probably several times over, as I am--the Kanes (probably originally refugees from the sectarian disturbances in County Armagh in 1793), and the Conefreys of Leitrim/Longford. Here is are some of the highlights of what I have found. Bishop Higgins (and your great-great-grandmother) probably also had another sister who married someone named Nicolls. The bishop officiated at another marriage in 1830 in Longford Town for which I have found a record, rather unusual for a sitting bishop of the time to do unless one of the bridal company was a relative, especially since his residence was still in Ballymahon at the time. Your great-great-grandmother had a brother (whose baptismal name I have not yet been able to find out) who fathered another William Higgins who volunteered as a missionary priest in Diocese of Demerara, essentially the present country of Guiana. He went to the mission field knowing that he probably would not survive his service there; recruiters who came to Maynooth to seek volunteers were quite frank in saying that almost all of the priests previously active in the diocese had died of malaria or yellow fever and that replacements were urgently needed. As it happened, he did not die--he was one of only two survivors of that volunteer group--and came to the United States, where he served in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and as a military chaplain in the Civil War until his death. Bishop Higgins received his early education in hedge schools, although tradition has it that his mother taught him to read--which is absolutely amazing if true, because illiteracy among female Catholic Irish of the time was well over 90%. The bishop himself left Ireland to study for the priesthood in about 1800. Although the national Catholic seminary at Maynooth had been established in 1795 as a concession by the British to Catholics to keep them from joining the Protestant minority in the latter's drive for greater political rights, Irish clerical preparation was not yet considered to be on a par with that which was available on the continent. William Higgins went first to the Irish College in Paris where he witnessed the final stages of the French Revolutionary period. This experience seems to have had a lasting effect on his attitudes. Until the end of his life, he remained adamant that the Irish should use parliamentary means--rather than foreign intervention and violence like that which culminated in the Battle of Ballinamuck in 1798--to secure civil equity. Ordained for the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise in France, he went on to the Irish College in Rome, where he received his doctorate, and then to Vienna. He returned to Ireland in 1824 and taught theology at Maynooth College, which was then in the process of upgrading its educational quality. In 1828, with Catholic Emancipation imminent, he was consecrated bishop in Ballymahon (in the South of County Longford), which was at the time the episcopal seat. Once Catholic Emancipation was a reality, Bishop Higgins began a lifetime of work of providing the diocese with permanent, impressive (the only word for it) church buildings to replace those that had been confiscated during the Reformation, with the goal of raising the profile of the now fully legal Church among a people who had until fairly recently had to attend Mass (which was legally prohibited under the Penal Laws until the Catholic Relief Acts of the 1770's) in secluded spots in the great outdoors. He raised the money for the building of St. Mel's Cathedral in Longford Town and laid the foundation stone in 1840. (Unfortunately, the cathedral was not completed during his lifetime because work ground to a halt during the Famine period of 1845-52.) Another of his preoccupations was to provide the diocese with an adequate number of well educated clergy and to found schools for the Catholic population in general. He had the original idea for St. Mel's College, which he intended as a seminary--a purpose that it did serve during its early years. St. Mel's College still exists today opposite the cathedral, but it has long since become an elite private school offering both lay and clerical education for young men. The College was not completed during Bishop Higgins' lifetime because of the Famine either. A third passion of the bishop was the Repeal of the Act of Union of 1800, enacted in response to the Irish rebellion and French intervention of 1798, that dissolved the Irish Parliament and brought Ireland under the direct rule of Westminster. A lifelong friend of the great Daniel O'Connell, he spoke at one of O'Connell's pro-repeal "monster meetings" in Mullingar (County West Meath). This past summer, with the gracious permission of the incumbant Bishop of Ardagh, I was able to spend several days examining the papers of Bishop Higgins that have survived. I am still working my way through a thick sheaf of copies. However, I am already in a position to draw some conclusions from them. However he acquired it, Bishop Higgins was phenominally well educated for the times or, for that matter, for any time. He wrote English, French, Italian, and Latin flawlessly. (Presumably his Irish was flawless also, but I am not qualified to pass judgment on that.) He presented his arguments logically, displaying a comprehensive grasp of the learning of his time. His letters display a finely tuned knack for Church and secular politics. He was fearless and persistent in defending the interests of the downtrodden Catholic population against potentially detrimental measures by the great Protestant landlords, particularly the Earls of Granard and Leitrim. Sadly, in the! end, the Famine destroyed him psychologically several years before he died in the physical sense, but he made a valiant effort to hold on until the end and to provide such succor as he could to the population committed to his care. I have masses of documentary material that you might find interesting. Please contact me off list and let us see how I can get it to you. Some of the files are very large because they contain numerous family-related photographs and might strain the limits of what you can receive via email. Welcome to the family. What a nice Christmas present it is for me to receive this wholly unexpected opportunity to open up another collateral line in the genealogical table I have been working on for so long. Nancy Gray Original message from "White, Claire - SOL" <[email protected]>: -------------- > > I have just learned that my great great grandfather, John Brady, of Clonbroney > parish, married Margaret Higgins in Drumlish RC Parish on May 4, 1831. They > were married by William Higgins, Bishop of Ardagh, who was Margaret's > brother. Can someone suggest to me where I might find more information on > that Higgins family? Thanks. Claire Brady White > > > > > > ==== IRL-LONGFORD Mailing List ==== > To contact the listowner send an email to: > [email protected] > __________ NOD32 1.957 (20041222) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.nod32.com