John Finigan was born in Dremior, Ireland, on February 1, 1828, one of ten children in the Finigan family. He attended St. Patrick's College in Armagh, Ireland, but the famine forced his emigration to the United States where he settled in Detroit, Michigan. It was there at age twenty-four that he made the decision to enter the Brothers' Novitiate at Montreal on July 23, 1852. John received the habit and religious name of Brother Barbas on September 8th of that same year. Later that year he was assigned to the school in Toronto and in May of 1853 he was transferred to Kingston, Ontario. On July 19, 1853 he returned to Montreal and in August he was sent to Christian Brothers College in St. Louis, Missouri, where he taught Latin. Brother Barbas remained there until 1894 when he was transferred to Feehanville to recover from an intestinal ailment. An operation proved unsuccessful and he died there at age sixty-six, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for forty-two years.
