Dornan, Henry

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Personal

Fullname: Henry Dornan
aka: Harry Dornan
Born: 14 February 1916
Died: 4 December 1990 in Kilwinning
Birthplace: Stevenston
Signed: 17 May 1941 (long loan spell from Kilmarnock)
Left: May 1944 (St Mirren)
Debut: Queen’s Park 2-5 Celtic, Glasgow Charity Cup, 21 May 1941
Position: Left- Back
Internationals: none

Biog

A wartime loan signing, Kilmarnock full-back Harry Dornan played 66 games for Celtic between May 1941 and 1944. During the war he worked in an explosives factory.

His debut in the Hoops came on 21st May 1941 in a Glasgow Charity Cup match with Queen’s Park at Hampden which the Bhoys won 5-2.

He was brought in to replace Roy Milne who was called-up for the RAF to India. It was said that Harry Dornan’s recruitment to Celtic was met with grief by some at Dumbarton. Left-back Harry Dornan had been on loan at Dumbarton when he was approached by Celtic who wanted him to stand in for Roy Milne who was serving in the RAF.

Harry Dornan was a reliable and consistent performer for his temporary employers and gave valuable service to the Celtic cause until a knee injury in 1943. It was said on him that:

“What he lacks in brawn he makes up for in guile“.

In his first season, he helped Celtic to recover to come third in the truncated regional wartime league (‘Southern League‘) and helped Celtic to the semi-finals of the Southern League Cup, losing 2-0 to Rangers. Celtic lost all three times to Rangers that season conceding 7 goals, so much had to be worked on.

The following season (1942/43) was a disaster for the club, with Celtic finishing 9th in the truncated league season, and it appears that Harry Dornan and the defence had a torrid time, conceding 76 goals in the league alone. Against league champions Rangers, he played in the humiliating 8-1 loss in the Ne’er Day derby in 1943, and then also both legs of the defeats to Rangers in the Summer Cup, lost 8-1 on aggregate. Celtic had badly sunk that season. One note is that he also played in a 4-4 draw against Albion Rovers, which featured a young Jock Stein in defence for Albion Rovers.

His only goal (a penalty) came in a 2-1 defeat v Motherwell in the league on 4th October 1941.

His final game was the first league game of the 1943/44 season, a 2-1 victory over Clyde in August 1943, which is where he suffered his knee injury that ended his time in the Celtic first team.

After his knee injury in 1943, he struggled to win a first team place, having been replaced by Pat McDonald now partnering Hogg, and on his recovery Harry Dornan was in the Celtic reserves in front of Ugolini in goals. In fairness to the team management, Celtic had turned a corner during his time out and recovered to come second in the league which was a marked improvement on the previous season.

By 1944 he was again on loan not at Parkhead but St Mirren. He had served Celtic very well during a difficult time in Scottish society amongst all else, and we respect him for that.

In one unfortunate incident during the war, Harry Dornan got fined for leaving the lights on in his local team’s clubhouse during the blackout. He was training there while playing for Celtic. It was a common slur against Catholics in Scotland during the war (and for generations afterwards) that they purposely left the lights on at night to help guide the enemy bombers, total nonsense from various narrow-minded paranoid bigotted people.

He later moved back to Kilmarnock, and then finished off his career with spells at Arbroath (1947) and Queen of the South (1948).

He passed away in 1990.