My 3-times great grandfather was Bartholmew Henry Higgins, born in Deptford, Kent in 1814. He rose from being an apprentice on a coal boat to a very successful master mariner (captain) of numerous ships until he retired in the 1870s. Two of his sons were also mariners.
He and 3 of his siblings were baptised in Our Lady Of The Sea in Greenwich which was known as "The Sailor's Church", so I'm assuming that Bartholomew's father Patrick Higgins was also a mariner. But I'm struggling to find out anything other than he married Winfred O'Hara and was born in Ireland.
Some of Bartholomew's children were born in Ireland in the 1840s (according to the census, although it doesn't state where in Ireland), so in his trade as a mariner he clearly lived in Ireland on and off before settling in London.
Does anyone have access to marine records and can trace any Irish mariners, probably a captain, called Patrick Higgins. He would have been born in the 1780s, possibly residing in Dublin or Waterford (I'm guessing the later because Bartholomew was also a marine pilot and was permitted to pilot ships to ports in the south of England and to Waterford so that must be a place he knew well and was possibly where his family originated from, or where his father as a sea captain was based).
Any help/advice would be gratefully received.