Celtic & Irish Home Rule issue

Incidents, Events & Controversies | About Celtic

Dates: end of 19th Century & start of the 20th Century
Ref: Issue of Irish Home Rule and Independence with respect to Celtic.

On this contentious issue in history, on this site we are not taking sides or will dictate anything to anyone. This is all for information only, and there are a cross section of opinions on it all across both within & outwith the support.

Celtic & Irish Home Rule
Due to the strong ties that Celtic had as a club, in the positions held by its senior committee & board members within society and their close ties to Ireland, the issue at the end of 19th Century & start of the 20th Century was very closely entwined with that of the lives of many at the club.

Being so visible an entity with Irish roots & links, many within the club were able to use contacts within their organisations to help support the growing club. The supporters found a place in which they could take pride of their Irish roots, and this helped supporters of Irish rule in a positive environment. Success for clubs like Celtic & Hibs, helped raise morale and confidence in the Irish ideal.

Celtic stalwarts such as John Glass, Michael Davitt, Tom White and others played their part in support for the cause, and played major roles in Home Rule organisations.

Others such as Willie Maley (who was Irish born in a British army family) were still important at Celtic despite having some sympathy to the national institutions in the UK (such as the Royal family). Willie Maley didn’t subscribe to the views of many of the club’s Irish nationalist supporters, though he did support the idea of Home Rule for Ireland. It showed the tolerance for a cross-section of viewpoints on the Irish Home Rule issue.

The club’s set-up didn’t stop anyone being welcome at the club regardless of their political, national or religious persuasion. The club quickly shot down any attempts to limit access to the club, and there have been Scottish & Irish Protestants to have played for the club since the early years. There was no policy or practise of sectarianism despite the political climate of the eras.

Even during the turmoil of the push for independence following the Easter Rising in 1916, English army-man Tom Barber still played for Celtic with no issues at all, and later moved to Northern Ireland to play for Linfield & Belfast Celtic. Celtic was an ecumenical & inclusive institution.

Celtic had a clearly open position on the issue of Irish Home rule, which will have been something that both created support & opposition to certain people at the club from outside. In the end, supporters of Irish Home Rule were to win out, but the repercussions were to linger for generations to come.

• See below article from The Shamrock Magazine for a good summary & overview of the related topics.

Hibs & Irish Home Rule
As a comparison to Celtic, at the original Hibernian FC there are reports are that it caused discussion & major issues there too, but the main difference to Celtic was that it was to create serious divisions at the club.

During the Irish Home Rule campaign of 1890, many of the Hibs players and officials took part in political meetings,protest’s and boycotts in favour of Irish Home rule. However, this brought them into conflict with Canon Hanon and the church who feared violence and the club was split right down the middle with many committee members being forced to resign. In fairness, Hibernian had a smaller base to work from in Edinburgh than their counterparts in Glasgow for any support if any trouble was to occur.

Hence with no money, few committee members, conflict with the church and a split club then it is another reason for the collapse of the original Hibernian club. Another clear example to show that the formation of Celtic was not the reasoning for their collapse as some have tried to paint it.

The irony is that the original Hibs club was seen as the more conservatively Irish club, especially as they limited players to being Catholic and members of the local Catholic Young Mens Association (CYMS). Some had even criticised Celtic for being more open and diluting their Irish heritage. James Brogan was a Catholic who played for Hibs was an immediate hit, scoring regularly. In less than 3 months he was banished – and joined Hearts instead. The problem with young Brogan was not the fact he was Catholic – he just wasn’t Catholic enough! The rules of the Edinburgh club at the time were clear. As a sporting club which was part of the St Patrick’s Catholic Young Mens Society (CYMS) in the Cowgate, each Hibernian. player had to be a CYMS member – which meant they had to be a practising Catholic. After 10 weeks in the city, James Brogan hadn’t enrolled in the CYMS, hadn’t attended Mass and didn’t join in religious parades along with his fellow Hibernians players.

This whole policy on Irish Home Rule was also surprising in that James Connolly is held up as one of the original Hibernian club’s most famous supporters. Edinburgh born James Connolly, had played an active role in the Easter rising in Dublin in 1916 as well as being a prominent Irish trade unionist and was one of the original signatories to the ‘Irish Declaration of Independence of 1916‘ before being shot in Kilmannion jail by the British authorities after the 1916 uprising.

The future

Ireland has long prospered into a major functioning country in the World. All have moved on, but there is no denying the impact it had on the club, and the position that some linked to Celtic had in assistance of this progress. Something to take interest & pride from.

Links

Political Football – No.1 Celtic FC and the campaign for Irish Home Rule

20/12/2013 The Shamrock 5 Comments

Source: https://the-shamrock.net/2013/12/20/pf01-home-rule/

In 1896 the island of Ireland was firmly under British rule. Some civil rights had gradually been extended to the Catholic population through the nineteenth century due to the efforts of campaigning lawyer Daniel O’Connell. The increasingly influential Irish Party at Westminster had supported two unsuccessful attempts by the Liberal Prime Minister Gladstone to pass an Irish Home Rule Act in 1886 and 1893. No sustained armed campaign had been attempted for over a decade. Charles Parnell had died – in disgrace and defeat – a few years earlier and the struggle for Irish freedom had effectively stalled.

The campaign for self-determination was given new impetus by an idea from John Walsh, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto. This exiled Irishman had proposed that “a great National Convention, speaking with the authority of the nation, and voicing its fixed and unalterable purpose to labour for and to win the right of self-government, would give new hope and heart energy to Irishmen at home and abroad.” The idea took hold and plans were made for an assembly to be held in Dublin which would be “representative of the Irish race throughout the world.” The objective was to force the British into conceding a Dublin parliament to the Irish people.

The impressive Leinster Hall in Hawkins Street was home to the Irish Race Convention over three days in September 1896. Almost 3,000 delegates attended from all corners of the world including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as various European countries and of course Ireland itself, to debate issues surrounding Irish sovereignty. The Convention represented a clear challenge to British rule and an assertion that the Irish people – with the support of the global Irish diaspora – were ready to govern themselves without foreign oversight or interference.

The outstanding figure at the Convention was Michael Davitt, referred to in a newspaper at the time as “the one-armed Fenian chief, the darling son of their own Mayo, evicted like themselves, saturated with a hatred of Landlordism as fierce as their own, returning untamed by penal servitude to the old struggle, by new methods, perhaps, but with the old, unconquered men gathering behind men.” Davitt had led the successful Land League campaigns against absentee and abject landlords. In his address to the Convention Davitt recalled the inhumane treatment he’d been subject to in English prisons:

There is an instinct of humanity common to every created being which prompts a man to give food even to a hungry dog. But it is left for England, enlightened England, to include semi-starvation in the system of punishment she metes out to her Irish political foes. I have undergone over nine years imprisonment because I have been a rebel against misgovernment from the moment I was first taught that, next to my duty to God was my duty to Irish liberty, and I say here today that during seven long years of that imprisonment, under England’s system of punishment, I never for one hour ceased to feel the pangs of hunger.

Michael Davitt – ‘Tribune of the Celtic Race’, Glasgow Observer 1887

Davitt was a regular visitor to Scotland where the Irish National League (INL) was the major organisation promoting Irish self-determination. He would usually stay at the Lenzie home of John Ferguson, his political ally and long-regarded as the figurehead of the Irish in Scotland. Ferguson was an Ulster Protestant who had moved to Glasgow as a young man and became committed to the cause of Irish freedom. He used his publishing business to promote associated campaigns and was the founder of the influential Home Government Branch of the INL in Glasgow, the treasurer of which was John Glass, one of the founding fathers of Celtic FC.

At various times there had been resistance from Catholic clergy and others to the status of John Ferguson as the de-facto political leader of the Irish in Scotland. However the Home Government Branch were avowedly non-sectarian and membership was open to members of any faith or none, a philosophy shared by Celtic FC. This was emphasised in the club’s centenary season by a modern politician who has made his way seamlessly into the Celtic boardroom, Brian Wilson.

In the official centenary history ‘A Century With Honour’ Wilson identified a group of individuals who had significant roles in the club’s early years while holding office in or being members of the Home Government Branch including John Glass, James Quillan, William and John McKillop, Hugh and Arthur Murphy and also Tom White, who went on to establish a dynasty at Celtic Park along with James Kelly’s family. Wilson argued that the influence that this group of men exercised “ensured that the primary aim would be to create a club that was outward-looking, proudly Irish and excellent, rather than a ‘Glasgow Hibernians’ founded on the Catholic parishes.”

John Ferguson used his address to the Convention to explain how support for Irish freedom had grown across the water in Scotland:

I come from a country where we had to fight for our political rights and political existence as Irishmen a fiercer fight than any you have had perhaps in this or any country in the world. We have had Irishmen shot on the platform while maintaining our green flag above. We have had bullets through our windows to tell us of the hostile feeling of the Scottish people. That day has passed away, and we roused the spirit of Celtic kinship amongst the Scottish people, and to-day Scotland stands solid for Home Rule.

ImageJohn Ferguson – 1879

Scottish representation at the Convention was impressive. Delegations from Broxburn, Dumbarton, Dundee, Greenock and Hamilton were joined by ten separate branches of the INL from Glasgow. The most remarkable delegation was the only sporting organisation of the Irish diaspora represented in Dublin – Celtic Football Club. This delegation was made up of President Glass, Treasurer James McKay and former player and new Secretary, Willie Maley. The decision to attend the Convention was a bold declaration by the club, still in its first decade, that it supported the cause of Irish freedom. This striking move reflected the fact that the club stemmed from, and was supported by, the expatriate Irish community in Glasgow. It is hard to imagine the hysteria such a move would provoke in the Scottish media today.

The decision to have the club officially represented at the Irish Race Convention was clearly political and had the full support of club members. This is confirmed by the other founding fathers, committeemen and former players who also made the trip to Dublin in various delegations including captain James Kelly, Mick Dunbar, club lawyer Joseph Shaughnessy, Dr. Joseph Scanlon, Thomas Colgan (also associated with Belfast Celtic) William McKillop, Joseph McGroary and John McGuire.

John Glass portrait from Celtic Park

In many ways the public stance taken by the club in support of Irish independence in 1896 should come as no surprise yet it has been largely forgotten even though, over a century on, Celtic remains the most prominent symbol of the Irish in Scotland.

Ten years after the Convention the three key figures involved in linking Celtic so openly with the Irish cause died within six weeks of each other – John Ferguson, Michael Davitt and John Glass. They had each worked at different levels – international, regional and local – in support of the same Irish freedom and were bound together also by the football club.

John Glass had told a Glasgow newspaper on his return from the 1896 Convention in Dublin that he was “very enthusiastic over the whole business and believed good would come out of it . . . the speeches were good and the enthusiasm immense. He had never been at such a gathering before in all his lifetime, and didn’t expect to be again. Good must come out of it, for without unity nothing could be gained.”

While Celtic’s delegation in common with most others remained in Dublin for a few days after the Convention ended, John Glass – a Celtic man through and through – had his priorities right. He caught the overnight steamboat and was back home in Glasgow by Saturday afternoon, just in time to see Celtic beat Hearts 3-0!

It had been a great week for the two causes closest to the heart of John Glass for whom sport and politics would always be inextricably linked.

ImageMichael Davitt mural – Claremorris, Co. Mayo

Text (C) The Shamrock 2013

by SlovSlam

I read with great interest the mammoth pro Celtic/anti Celtic thread and couldn’t help but notice how my own team Hibernian FC seemed to come up in the discussion, sometimes accurately and sometimes not.

Hence as my team and one of our early supporters played a significant role in Irish History, I thought I would give you a potted history of Hibs involvement and try to clear up some misconceptions and inaccuracies.
As I am Scottish, with no family or cultural ties whatsoever to Ireland in the slightest, then please forgive me if I misrepresent any of the history of your country.

As is commonly known, Hibernian FC, were formed in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh by Canon Joseph Hanon and Michael Whelehan both native Irishmen in 1875 (Interestingly 13 years before Celtic, who were formed in 1888).
The club was run by the Catholic Young Mens Association (CYMS) as an amateur football club where all money generated would be distributed as ‘poor relief’ to ‘Irish community’ of the Grassmarket area of the city.

Hibs originally played in green and white with ‘Erin go Bragh’ as a small logo on the jerseys.
Interestingly, Hibs also played in green and white hoops for a while, so next time you see a Celtic fan in your town, then tell him that they are in fact, the ‘second team to wear the famous hoops’

The common misconception is that ‘Celtic were then formed in 1888’ based roughly on the Hibs model and they stole all Hibs players by bribing them to play for Celtic and the original Hibs club went bankrupt in 1891 only to be reformed in 1893

This is only partly true ,as the Hibs secretary had absconded to Canada with all the club’s funds, hence Hibs had no money for ‘poor relief’, ‘players expenses’ or ‘under the counter payments’.
I am not as naive,as to think that Celtic,were the only club making dodgy payments to players in these so called amateur days.

However, it may interest some of you to know that there was an Irish political angle to the demise of the first Hibs club.
During the Irish Home Rule campaign of 1890, many of the Hibs players and officials took part in political meetings,protest’s and boycotts in favour of Irish Home rule.

However, this brought them into conflict with Canon Hanon and the church who feared violence and the club was split right down the middle with many committee members being forced to resign.
Hence with no money, few committee members, conflict with the church and a split club then it isn’t quite fair for Hibs fans just to blame it all on Celtic.
Though we all still do anyway.

Another political/historical connection between Hibs and Ireland concerns arguably, Hibs most famous supporter ‘James Connolly’.
James Connolly had been born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh and was a Hibs ballboy and regular attender in the early years, a plaque now stands to him in Edinburgh only a bye kick from the church hall where Hibernian FC had been founded.

James Connolly, I believe, played an active role in the Easter rising in Dublin in 1916 as well as being a prominent Irish trade unionist and was one of the 12(sorry, not sure) original signatories to the ‘Irish Declaration of Independance of 1916’ before being shot in Kilmannion jail by the British authorities after the 1916 uprising.

As the decades went by, understandbly Hibs began to lose much of there Irish roots as the Irish community became fully integrated into Edinburgh society and culture and there are many other myths that should be squashed some other time, such as the complete Celtic inspired nonsense, about our chairman Harry Swan in the 1950’s.

In modern times, I think we are very fortunate that our rivalry with Hearts is nothing remotely like Celtic/Rangers.
With the exception of the odd tri-colour or Union Flag, our hard fought derby matches are completely free of the sectarian nonsense found in Glasgow.

I think it would be safe to say that the vast majority of both Hibs and Hearts supporters, dislike or even despise both Rangers and Celtic for there arrogance, bigotry and bullying contempt they have for the other Scottish clubs.

Despite being a great football fan, to my shame I have never been to a LOI match but reading all your posts, I feel there is great empathy between the smaller Scottish clubs and your own teams and I fully sympathise with the problem of ‘Celtic fans’ who are unwiling to support there local side.

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