COMMUNITY NOTES: KILTIMAGH - WESTERN PEOPLE (JUNE 24 EDITION)
A young New Yorker with strong Kiltimagh roots will represent Ireland at the European Under-18 Baseball Championships in Bulgaria next month.
Sixteen-year-old Ronan Higgins, whose father James was born and raised in Kiltimagh, has been selected to pitch for the Irish national team in the tournament, which takes place in Blagoevgrad from July 6 to 13. Ireland will compete in a group with Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.
Ronan plays as a pitcher and is known for throwing at speeds of up to 80mph. He currently attends Xavier High School in Manhattan, where he plays varsity baseball and has one year remaining. After graduation, he hopes to study aeronautical engineering, with Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach and the Colorado School of Mines among his preferred destinations.
Ronan’s father James moved from Kiltimagh to New York in 1983 with his parents, Pauline and Jim, and three sisters. The family had run a shop across from the community centre on Main Street, next door to the family home where James and his siblings were raised. Today, Ronan’s great-uncle Michael is the last of that generation of the Higgins family still living in Kiltimagh.
Though now based in the US, the Higgins family maintains strong links to both Mayo and Dublin. Ronan’s mother Suzanne is originally from Howth, and his older brother Kaelan recently completed his second year of law studies at University College Dublin. Younger brother James has one year remaining in grammar school.
The Ireland Under-18 baseball team trains at a facility in Finglas and plays its home games in Ashbourne, County Meath. Ronan’s selection is a point of pride for the extended family, and for the wider Mayo community cheering him on from afar as he prepares to represent Ireland on the international stage.
