Hugh was married three times. His second wife Elizabeth Murphy (b.1796 d.1819) was the grandmother of his grandson Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran. His first wife Mary Maher (b.1773 d.1810) was the mother of his son Cardinal Paul Cullen. His third wife also Mary Cullen (nee Keogh) (b.1799 d. 1845) was the widow of his nephew Edmund Cullen when she married Hugh. Some genealogies have conflicting Information due to a confused understanding of his wives. Hugh's mother belonged to the Kaplinski (who took the Irish name Kinsella in Ireland) family who were close relatives of Jacob Frank's second wife Chana (married 1752). Hugh's wife Mary Maher was a descendant of Jacob Frank's first wife Chaya (married c. 1740). These Frankists were at the forefront of the revival of Catholic mystical and devotional practices centered on Our Lady and the Eucharistic Lord such as the Rosary, novenas, devotion to the Sacred and Immaculate hearts, Benedictions, the forty hours devotions and Perpetual Eucharistic adoration. Under the Frankist Irish Bishops culminating in the work of Cardinal Cullen (Hugh's son) Irish Catholicism was transformed in what has been termed the "Irish devotional revolution".