section_path: Early life
section_name: Early life
paragraph_text: Early life
  
  Higgins was born on 18 April 1941 in Limerick. His father, John Higgins, was from Ballycar, County Clare, and was a lieutenant with the Charleville Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. John, along with his two brothers Peter and Michael, had been active participants in the Irish War of Independence.
  
  When John's father's health grew poor, with alcohol abuse as a contributing factor, John sent Michael, aged five, and his four-year-old brother to live on his unmarried uncle and aunt's farm near Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare. His elder twin sisters remained in Limerick. He was educated at Ballycar National School, County Clare and St. Flannan's College, Ennis.
  
  As an undergraduate at University College Galway (UCG), he served as vice-auditor of the college's Literary and Debating Society in 1963–64, and rose to the position of auditor in the 1964–65 academic year. He also served as president of UCG Students' Union in 1964–65. In 1967, Higgins graduated from the American Indiana University Bloomington with a Master of Arts degree in sociology. He also briefly attended the University of Manchester.
  
  In his academic career, Higgins was a statutory lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at UCG and was a visiting professor at Southern Illinois University. He resigned his academic posts to concentrate fully on his political career.
  
  Higgins is a fluent Irish language speaker and also speaks Spanish.