Francis Joseph Biggar is a name not to be forgotten, either in his native Belfast or in this part of the country. A well-off solicitor, he was a serious archaeologist and student of Ulster history, indeed as Roger Dixon writes in From Corrib to Cultra, a tireless promoter of all aspects of Irish culture, including folklore and folk music.
To his house, Ardrigh on the Antrim Road came many younger men who were later to make a name for themselves - Bulmer Hobson, Denis McCullough, Joseph Campbell, the poet, not forgetting musicians and theatre people. He had rebuilt cottages in the native manner; one pub which was still in business in the last few decades, was constructed in traditional manner by him, and Jordan's Castle in Ardglass (was it a Norman keep?) for long held memorabilia he had gathered from around his native province. This writer remembers standing on the top, while crows nesting in the trees met him eye to eye.
Politically Biggar stood with his younger friends Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough, founders of the Dungannon Clubs, the objectives of which could be summed up as: The Building up of Ireland - intellectually, materially and physically. The first by education, establishing libraries for example; materially fostering and starting up new industries, and physically by the spread of national games and physical culture.
Biggar as a lecturer often spoke on "The Hills of Holy Ireland". Not as innocuous as it sounds, notes Roger Dixon. The 1798 men were the subject of six individual biographies, only one of which, William Oxx, was published. Bulmer Hobson helped as researcher and ghost writer in more than one. Biggar and a committtee organised the great 1902 Feis of the Nine Glens.
Roger Casement was there, also Herbert Hughes, arranger of Irish airs and Padraig Colum. In 1903 Biggar with Herbert Hughes went to north Donegal and they came back with many unrecorded airs. Songs of Uladh came out of this. Joseph Campbell wrote the Lyrics of My Lagan Love, The Blue Hills of Antrim and others.
Campbell called Biggar "A diviner of thoughts . . . an urger of native effort . . . ah, the loveliest soul, the lordliest type of mortal Irishman it has been, or will be, my lot to know". Bulmer was perhaps, along with Denis McCullough the closest of all to Biggar, who died in 1926. "His death", writes Dixon, "marked the end of an era of great hope for Irish culture and Nationalist practice in Belfast".