It's not the ceiling that takes the holding up, its the walls and roof…
Our first house was a council house where someone has removed the wall from between the kitchen and dining room. By the time we sold it there was a 1" gap along the top of the bathroom wall as the ceiling sagged. It was not a brick wall, but I do wonder if the guy who did it would have done the same even if it was!
My Dad did take a ground floor brick wall out of a house. It's still up now with no problems – he used steel props with the load spread by a scaffold plan on either side of the wall and installed an RSJ across the brick pillars at each end. nearly forty years on it's still holding up!
Neil