The last month of the ’26 season brought me to Glasgow 4 weeks in a row; I would hazard a guess that I never did that previously in my 57 years crossing the Irish Sea to see this institution of a football club we all love so dear.
First up was ‘the Rangers’ and a flamboyant victory which ended their interest in the title race; next up was the would be champions who soon found out that to be champions you play till the end until the fat lady sings and the final whistle proclaims it.
The following week was the cup final and a more relaxed Hampden in the sun and an unlikely double achieved and I spent the rest of the week golfing at Musselbrough.
In early June I caught a red eye flight from Dublin to Glasgow and after breakfast in George Square made my way out to Parkhead for the first ever conference by Celtic supporters for Celtic supporters. I met up with a friend Gerry Morton from Moodiesburn, he is originally from the Garngad and took our seats in the Kerrydale suite where we met up with a young guy from Armagh Conor Feehan who, like me had travelled over on an early flight from Belfast. The next 4 hours provided a fascinating and interesting observation on all things Celtic.
The conference was organised after the sad passing of 3 iconic Celtic writers and we had a minute’s applause for Pat Woods, Tom Campbell and David Potter who wrote for More than 90 Minutes and this website for many years and recorded many episodes with Andrew Milne for the Celtic Soul Podcast.
Between the 3 men they wrote a plethora of books on Celtic. The conference was formally opened by David Watt, University of Glasgow and he introduced the speakers; Dr Joe Bradley, Edinburgh University and author of the Celtic Minded books; Dr Michael Connolly, author of the definitive life story of Brother Walfrid; Dr Margot McCuaig, documentary filmmaker; Matthew Marr of Celtic Glasgow walking tours; Stephen Murray, Celtic Wiki and last but not least a man unlike the rest of us got the opportunity to don the famous green & white hoops, Tosh McKinley.
The idea for the conference was the brainchild of Professor Jim O’Brien, Dr. Joe Bradley University of Edinburgh, and David Watt University of Glasgow and it gave the conference an academic feel to it although the talks and response from those attending was based on our working class roots and not in anyway elitist or condescending.
Dr. Joe Bradley talked of how the Irish Catholic community suffered sectarianism and only in the late 20th century has been accepted into mainline Scottish society. He observed how the Scottish media couldn’t accept the sight of 80,000 fans in Seville carrying the flag of the Irish Republic not the Saltire.
He alluded to the abuse Aiden McGeady received at every ground in Scotland because he played for the Republic, the abuse not dissimilar to the racist attacks in Belfast recently. He also referred to the whole aspect of Celtic’s history that originally we were a Catholic Irish club and that’s how we are identified but we embrace all cultures and religions and would never accept sectarianism in the modern era.
Dr. Michael Connolly talked about the origins of the club with Brother Walfrid the main figure in our history. He had delved deeply into research at several universities and uncovered some fascinating written documents in the special collections area about the influence of the Marist Brothers in Glasgow and beyond. The Sligo roots of Andrew Kerins in the little village of Ballymote were looked at and how he just escaped the poverty laden years post An Gorta Mor.
His faith and commitment brought help to the Donegal Irish and others in the 1880’s. There is a magnificent statue to Walfrid in the village at Ballymote just beside the train station, definitely worth looking it up on your travels.
Dr. Margot McCuaig detailed her past involvement in film making and how she presented documentaries on Lisbon Lions but her main focus which definitely caught the attention of the mostly male audience was the role of women in the history of our great club. While football was always a male dominated sport for the first century it definitely opened up to everyone in the late 20th century and within the Celtic support we have a large percentage of female fans who love the club and travel across Europe in support of ‘their’ club.
Margot pointed out that all books written about Celtic over the years had male authors. She challenged this and suggested that there was no reason why women couldn’t contribute in similar fashion. If there were any old fashioned male chauvinists in the audience they remained silent as Margot received very warm applause as she described how old grannies, their daughters and granddaughters were every bit as much Celtic fans as the males in the old tenements in the Gorbals back in the day and while they mightn’t have gone to the game they lit a candle and said a prayer to someone and soaked the men with holy water as they left for the game.
Matthew Marr gave a great talk on his walking tours around Glasgow and told of the many places with connections to great Celtic players of the past and other places with a Celtic connection. He surmised that most fans would walk by places in the city without knowing that they had this connection with history.
Finally Stephen Murray highlighted his involvement in social media and especially the Celtic Wiki site. His group understood that in the modern era they had to embrace the internet era and get the Celtic story up front on Facebook, LinkedIn, X (and especially now with the advent of AI, Chat GPT etc we need to be out there or risk getting lost in the tsunami of social media.
Celtic Wiki has a massive collection of Celtic related information and amazingly 60,000 photos posted on the site. Unfortunately sites like X are owned by arseholes like Elon Musk and have the chance of becoming dangerous if used in the wrong way. But we have to move on.
Celtic were the first club with a weekly newspaper and that gave us our Celtic info for 50 years but like the newspaper industry in general it went into decline so now social media is the only way to attain our up to the minute Celtic news. The Celtic View now only comes out 4 times a year. With this in mind it is fantastic to see More than 90 Minutes and other Celtic fanzines still publishing print editions on a regular basis.
The conference moved along nicely and after a welcome coffee break we had a Q & A session and some interesting questions directed to the panel and also thrown open to the floor. At each table there were also discussions taking place and a certain buzz around Kerrydale.
One interesting aspect I thought was the unity of thought among those in attendance as you know the great Brendan Behan once said; ‘the first item on any Irish organisation’s agenda is the split’. I say that facetiously as there appeared to be unity in the room and plans and suggestions for the next conference in ’27.
As the recent song for the 130th anniversary goes; ‘Celtic did it first’; the conference was a first, just like our victory in Lisbon, our club newspaper, the first manager from the southern hemisphere and hopefully in 2031 the first 10 in a row!
Paddy was born in Belfast with Donegal and Tyrone parents. He spent the 70’s in Long Kesh. He has been going to Paradise since the Benfica game in Nov. 1969. He lived in Donegal for 30 years but now lives in Galway. He returned to University at 50 and became a secondary school teacher of history and English.
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