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Glasgow Celtic’s new manager underpins an old connection
The announcement that Brendan Rodgers is to return as the manager of Celtic football club is one of those stories that, superficially, is just about football. It is certainly an interesting football story in itself – Rodgers left the club mid-season four years ago for the bright lights of the English Premiership and many of the fans were unhappy with him at the time; bad enough to leave, worse to leave mid-season when the club were chasing another Scottish title.
The fans were certainly feeling bruised again when the then manager and fan favourite, Ange Postecoglou, decided to swap Glasgow and Celtic for London and Spurs a couple of weeks ago. Postecoglou, an Australian of Greek descent, had, in his short tenure, lifted the club out of the doldrums with a solid team, at least in Scotland, and an honest, though toothless, one when playing in the Champions League. The supporters’ hope was that Postecoglou would continue Celtic’s dominance in Scotland and that the Hoops would, might, please God, win a game or two in the Champions League next time out.
That challenge will now fall to Rodgers. So, it is the Irishman from Antrim who will lead them into battle and not the Aussie from Oz.
Rodgers, of course, is the third Irishman to lead the club in recent times. Martin O’Neill from Co Derry also managed the team and, for his sins, the Republic of Ireland and Armagh’s Neil Lennon played for and managed the club. In addition, the club’s biggest shareholder is the well-known Irish businessman, Dermot Desmond.
Still, is it too romantic to see in Rodgers’ return a little echo of Dál Ríata (also spelt Riada) that ancient Irish kingdom that took in, fadó, fadó, Rodgers’ picturesque home village, Carnlough? Historian Thomas Bartlett notes: “In the seventh century the Irish sea should be viewed as a bridge between the territory of Dál Ríata, which extended from Antrim to Argyll, and for centuries after that it was used as a corridor between north-east Ireland and Scotland.”
(He also notes that the “Scottish settlement in east Ulster in the seventeenth century was both logical and predictable”. That’s academic for “what goes around comes around”.)
That bridge has never really been lost and, it can be argued, stretched into Connacht too. Mayo, like Donegal, supplied migrant workers to Scotland and one figure from Connacht, Brother Walfrid (1840-1915), is central to Celtic’s history. Walfrid was born Andrew Kerins in Ballymote in County Sligo. As a Marist brother he moved to Scotland and set up the club in 1888 to help feed the poor in Glasgow. There is a statue to him outside Celtic’s home ground in Glasgow and a smaller, but just as affecting memorial, in his native Ballymote. It is really quite humbling to think that Sligo, Connacht and Ireland are connected to this Scottish club in such a profound way. Indeed, it is quite astounding to think that this quiet cultural tie has endured, and flourished, for so long.
Of course, Celtic enjoys huge support amongst Irish fans, both rural and urban, but that support is not always reflected amongst the Dublin middle-class meeja; Celtic being a little bit too working class and, even worse, a bit too nationalist for D4. However, those links between Glasgow Celtic and Irish fans ensure a steady stream of people crossing over the water to see them play at home and, now again, on the continent. Celtic fans know that part of the world, in all its facets, better than many of the Dublin commentariat who, far too often, conflate the south of England, and London in particular, with all of Britain.
Irish people, from a nationalist background, be they footballer fans or not, who travel to Scotland cannot but notice the war memorials that dot the landscape and where the names of fallen Scots draw a moment’s silent prayer in a way in which, say, the same memorials in Belfast or Derry do not – thus far, anyway. That simple pause does more to deepen understanding of historic events, cultural ties, and their bloody losses, than a thousand op ed pieces in Dublin papers.
Further, the same can be said of the sister languages that Ireland and Scotland share, Gaeilge and Gàidhlig. It seems to be a common enough worry amongst our, Anglicized, betters that Irish is a gateway drug to neo-fascism and a hatred of all things English; irregular verbs lead to irregular thoughts. Yet, sooner or later, Irish speakers, be they from West Belfast or the West of Ireland, end up in the Scottish Gàidhealtachd, swapping a “Cad é mar atá tú?/Conas atá tú?” for a “Ciamar a tha thu?”
Many Irish speakers look on Scotland as a linguistic home from home and contemporary literature plays its role in broadening horizons in that regard too. The poet Sorley MacLean (1911-1996) wrote in Scottish Gaelic and is rightly acclaimed for his artistic vision. A Presbyterian and man of the left, in the mould of Orwell, he, nonetheless served in the British army and was wounded in North Africa during the Second World War.
No Irish speaker with an interest in literature is going to refuse to read MacLean on the basis of his religion or his wartime service. Quite the opposite. His work and life is the sort of thing that actually gives a different insight into what it means to be British, opening up a creative and cultural space in which to explore identity.
Ireland’s Celtic sans-culottes, be they linguists or football fans, are a lot more aware of what happens in Britain than they are given credit for. The bridge is still standing and about to get busy again.
Pól Ó Muirí
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