Life
1863-1926 [Francis Joseph Bigger], b. Belfast, seventh son of a seventh
son of Church of Ireland woollen family from Biggerstown, nr. Mallusk,
Co. Antrim; ed Belfast Academical Institute; studied law in Dublin; later
MA, QUB; solicitor, 1888; became a Freemason; supported Irish language
revival and attended P J O’Shea’s Irish classes; member of Coisde
Gnotha [Executive Council] of Gaelic League; served as President of Belfast
Naturalists’ Field Club; ed. Ulster Journal of Archaeology,
1894-1914; numerous pamphlets and journal contributions, some 387 articles
being listed in Hayes’s Sources for the History of Irish Civilisation;
his house Ardrigh [occas. Airdrie] was a meeting-place for Northern nationalists (demolished
in 1986); restored public houses under Trust agreement; paid for Gaelic feis at Cushendall, organised by Roger Casement,
1904, erected granite slab over grave of St Patrick at Downpatrick Cathedral;
he restored castles (such as Jordan’s Castle, Ardglass, purchased
in 1911), churches, crosses and monuments at his own expense; his library
forms part of Belfast Central Public Library collection; MRIA; called
a ‘Protestant with Franciscan leanings’ by Shane Leslie [in
Doomsland, where he models for MacNeill]; established with others
the Ulster Public House Reform Association, with a model premises near
Mallusk; removed the bones of Henry Joy McCracken to his home, and later
re-interred them in the McCracken family plot here Carlisle Circus; wrote
William Orr (1906) for Maunsel; issued antiquarian writings on Irish
Penal Crosses 1713-1781 (1909); Cranfield Church (1911), The
Magees (1916), calendar of family papers; also studies of Amyas Griffiths,
Surveyor Gen. of Belfast, 1780-1785 as The Belfast Micawber (1916)
and Alexander Mitchell [q.d.]; issued Aeneas O’Haughan [q.d.],
a novel, and Four Shots from Dawn (1919), ‘fireside stories,
humorous and pathetic’; also Mrs. Siddons and the Stage of Belfast
(1925) and Crossing the Bar (1926), being a account of beliefs
about death and the afterlife with legends and incidents, mostly Irish;
published notes on the Franciscan Friary in Ballycastle as well as the
churches of St. Tassach or Raholp and St. Nicholas of Artole in Downpatrick
(1917);; d. 9 Dec; his library of 3,000 volumes presented to Belfast Central
Library by his brother, Lt. Col. F C Bigger in 1927 to form the Bigger
Collection of the Irish Library, resulting in a printed catalogue (1930),
to be joined by the J. S. Crone Collection; he is the dedicatee of Cathal
O’Byrne’s As I Roved Out and George A. Birmingham’s
The Northern Iron (1907); a sketch of Bigger can be found in [pseud.]
Seán Ghall’s Preface to William Bulfin’s Rambles in
Ireland (5th edn. 1917); his papers are held in the Linenhall Library,
Belfast. DIB DIW DUB OCIL
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Works
The Ancient Franciscan Friary of Bun-na-margie [... &c.]
(Belfast: Marcus Ward & Co. 1898) [Ulster Journal of Archaeology];
The Northern Leaders of ’98 [No.1 William Orr] (Dublin: Maunsel
& Co. 1906) [no more published], xxxviii+201pp.; Crossing the Bar
(Belfast: W. E. Mayne 1926), ill. woodcuts by John F. Hunter.
Miscellaneous, ed. The Reliques of Barney Maglone (1894); Preface to Thomas Matthews, The O’Neills of Ulster, 3 vols. (Dublin: Sealy & Bryers & Walker 1907); Intro. to James Mathews, Ulster Land War of 1770: Hearts of Steel (1910); ed., with preface, William Lutton, Montiaghisms: Ulster Dialect Words and Phrases (Armagh Guardian Office 1923), 46pp.; Seven Sketches (Dublin 1927), articles. Qry, Some Recent Archaeological Discoveries in Ulster (PRIA vol. 33 sect C. No.1; [?]1937, &c.)
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Criticism
In Remembrance [by] F. C. Bigger, articles and sketched, ed. J.
S. Crone and F. C. B. (1927); Roger Dickson [sic], ‘Irish and Loval
Collections in Belfast Central Library’, in Outline Magazine,
No. 6 (Belfast 1994); Roger Dixon [sic] and Terry Dixon, ‘F. J. Bigger,
Romantic, Enthusiast, and Antiquary’, in Causeway (Spring
1994), pp.5-7.
Bibliography, A. V. Hackett, W. Moore & W. Lauder, eds., A Catalogue of the Library of F. J. Bigger (1930), 302pp.; also, Catalogue of Belfast Central Library (1956) [of which this constitutes a significant part]; J. Anthony Gaughan, ed., Memoirs of Senator Joseph Connolly, 1885-1961: A Founder of Modern Ireland (IAP 1996), pp.76-77; Roger Dixon, ‘Apostle of the Living Legend: Francis Joseph Bigger, Belfast’s turn of the century cultural Don Quixote’, [&] ‘Fine Feiseanna: vernacular art and women in the national dream’, in Chris Moffat, ed., ‘Fin de Siecle: Arts and Crafts and the Celtic Perspective in Ireland: Northern perspectives’, Fortnight, 372 (July/August 1998), Special Supplement, pp.12-14; Roger & Terry Dixon, ‘F. J. Bigger, Romantic, Enthusiast, and Antiquary’, in Causeway (Spring 1994), pp.5-7: inter alia, authors note the modern archaeologists’ testimony to his interference with a site in the phrase ‘well and truly Biggered’.
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Notes
John Bardon, History of Ulster (1992), Francis Joseph Bigger,
Ardrigh (demolished 1986); Presbyterian solicitor [sic] and Freemason;
Sunday ‘firelight’ school, incl. uileann piper Francis ‘Da’
McPeake; romantic, mystical view of Gaelic past. Bardon cites precursor,
Hardiman; Ferguson (Táin-Quest, Deirdre, Lays
of Western Gael, and Congal, all called ‘somewhat overblown
verse translations’); Dr William Reeves, Church of Ireland curate
in Lisburn, rector of Ballymena, and bishop of Down, trans. Adamnan’s
life of Colum Cille, used legacy of £300 to save Book of Armagh
for the nation; George Sigerson, from Strabane; Sir Shane Leslie cousin
of Winston Churchill, disinherited for prolific anti-Unionist writing;
Roger Casement, of Ballycastle, organised feis at Cushendall, 1904, largely
paid for by Bigger; Hannay, some-time exec. member of Gaelic League; Paul
Henry and his brother Prof. Robt. H. Henry, who persuaded QUB to teach
Gaelic; Robert Lynd and James Winder Good; Forrest Reid; Bulmer Hobson,
Lisburn Quaker, founded with Bigger the Ulster Literary Theatre, 1902,
and later Republican organiser; Harry Morrow, of Thompson in Tír
na nÓg; actor-playwright Samuel Waddell; Helen Waddell; Alice
Milligan, dg. of Protestant businessman in Omagh; Herbert Hughes, Methodist
musicologist (all cited in Flann Campbell, 1991). Milligan joined by Ethna
Carbery, dg. of veteran Fenian, to edit short-lived Shan Van Vocht;
Bigger and Hughes toured Donegal collecting traditional melodies; produced
Songs of Uladh with John and Joseph Campbell, 1904 (quotes account
from Campbell of the composition to music by Hughes of ‘My Lagan
Love’, citing Flann Campbell). [p.421f]
Hyland Books (Cat. 219) lists Bigger, with R. L. Praeger & John Vinycomb, eds., Guide to Belfast and the Cos. of Down and Antrim by the Belfast naturalists[’] Field Club (1902).
Belfast Public Library holds Ulster Land War; Montiaghisms (Ulster dialect), collected by William Lutton and ed. F.J.B.; William Orr, in Maunsel Leaders of ‘98 series (1906); Franciscan Friary, Ballycastle; Alexander Mitchell; Amyas Griffiths [1916]; A[e]neas O’Haugha[m], fiction [n.d.]; Crossing the Bar (1926), essay; Four Shots from Dawn ([1919]), stories; In Remembrance (articles ed. by J.S. Crone) I/941.004; Niamh Chonghaill Ceann-chorr [Bangor] I/370; also Mrs. Siddons and the Stage of Belfast (1925).
University of Ulster Library holds Cat. [of his] Library, Cranfield Church .., (Belfast 1911), Crossing the Bar (Belf. 1926) Irish Penal Crosses; The Magees [family papers] (1916); Ulster Words and Phrases; The O’Neills; Personal Recollections; Churches of Tassuch and Nicholas; Ulster ... Land War; William Orr (Maunsel 1906); Bigger, intro. to James Mathews, The O’Neills of Ulster 3 vols. (Sealy & Bryers & Walker [n.d.])
University of Ulster Library, Morris Collection, holds Irish Penal Crosses 1713-1781 (1909); Some notes on the churches of St. Tassach or Raholp and St. Nicholas of Artole ... in the barony of Lecale in Down Padraig (1917), 15pp.
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Ubi sunt?: Bigger’s funerary monument was blown up by Protestant
extremist at the beginning of the current troubles and his home Ard Righ
demolished by developers. He was a ‘great lover of little boys’ in contemporary accounts and a close associate of Roger Casement.
Presbyterian franciscan?: Bigger was an Anglican of the Church of Ireland (information of Geoffrey Dudgeon).
Ardrigh/Airdrie: Bigger gives his address as ‘Airdrie, Belfast’ in his correspondence with the The Irish Book Lover (Vol. I, &c.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)