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Details
Full name: John Reid
Born: 5 Aug 1947
Birthplace: Bellshill, Scotland
Political Affiliations: Labour Party (former MP & Cabinet Minister)
Hobbies: History, Football, Puzzles, Celtic FC
| “I’m a small balding Celtic-supporting ex-Communist Catholic Unionist. Is it any wonder that everyone seems to hate me?” John Reid |
Summmary
John Reid’s appointment as Celtic chairman would prove to be one of the most controversial appointments at Parkhead for many years.
Yet on paper his background was more than a match for what is required for someone for such a club as ours with our history. From humble working class roots, John Reid immersed himself in various local social issue lines of work having left school at just 16, before heading to University where he worked through to complete a Marxist related PhD. He made a good name for himself as an outstanding and very well respected MP in Lanarkshire before gaining senior positions in the Labour governments under PM Tony Blair.
In Sep 2007, John Reid was nominated to become the next Chairman of Celtic taking over from Brian Quinn, ratified at the Nov 2007 AGM where he stated:
“I regard this as the greatest honour of my life. When you come to this club, you leave the background, religious division, and political division behind. This is not a forum for political debate. I am a member of the Celtic family and a lifelong supporter.”
Coming straight from the Government cabinet, where he served as Defence Secretary amongst other various positions in his time, he was not a popular choice among a notable section of the fanbase given his support for the war in Iraq. Various groups within the support made him a target for protests, with the Green Brigade displaying their dissatisfaction with Reid by continually hanging their eponymous ultra banner upside down.
This whole John Reid “war criminal” is patently nonsense. It was the US that invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the UK subsequently followed but note the Secretary of State for Defence doesn’t have the power to declare war. Only the PM does. The fact still remains that at the time of the Iraq War, John Reid was the Secretary of State for Health.
Iraq war started in 2003, John Reid became Secretary of State for Defence in 2005.
He cannot be held responsible in any way, and in any case you’d rather have a moral man like John Reid in government is such an environment than otherwise.
In truth, Reid was not a contentious appointment for the more apolitical supporter. He is, after all, a lifelong supporter of the club who described the appointment as the next best thing to playing for his heroes. Capable of speaking both eloquently and intelligently on all subjects that confront the club, it is likely he would have been a much more popular figure without the political baggage.
His tenure has been a tough one but to his credit he tackled Celtic’s off-field opponents with a frequently robust and passionate style which saw him declare that the days of Celtic being treated as second-class citizens by the game’s administrators. But unfairly detractors would argue that the rhetoric was not always met by results.
His decision to stand down as Chairman was announced on June 3rd 2011.
History
11/2007-Present Celtic Plc Chairman
11/2008 -Present Honorary Professor and new Chair at Institute of Security and Resilience Studies: University College London (UCL)
6/2003-Present (UK)House Of Commons Member Of Parliament Airdrie & Shotts Majority 14084 In 2005
5/2006-6/2007 United Kingdom Secy Of State:Home Office
5/2005-5/2006 (UK)Ministry Of Defence Secretary Of State
Unknown-5/2006 United Kingdom Secy Of State:Defense
6/2003-5/2005 (UK)Dept Of Health Secretary Of State
4/2003-6/2003 (UK)House Of Commons Leader
2002-6/2003 United Kingdom Minister Without Portfolio
10/2002-4/2003 Labour Party Of The UK Chairman
5/1997-4/2003 (UK)House Of Commons Member Of Parliament Hamiliton North & Bellshill:Majority Of 13561 In 2001
1/2001-10/2002 United Kingdom Secretary Of State Northern Ireland
5/1999-1/2001 United Kingdom Secretary Of State Scotland
7/1998-5/1999 (UK)Dept Transport/Envrmt/Regn Minister Of State
5/1997-7/1998 (UK)Ministry Of Defence Minister Of State For The Armed Forces
1987-5/1997 United Kingdom Member Of Parliament Motherwell North
1985-1987 Labour Party Of The UK Organizer Trade Unionists
1983-1985 Labour Party Of The UK Political Adviser To Neil Kinnock, Labour Party Leader
1979-1983 Labour Party Of The UK Research Officer
While a member of parliament, John Reid has served on the Public Accounts
Committee, joined the Labour Party Front Bench and been the deputy to the Shadow
Secretary of State for Defence. He is also the former joint vice chairman of the
All-Party Group on Azerbaijan, Belize, Russia and Uganda. He has also previously
served as a Union Organiser.
Articles
Quotes
“I’m a small balding Celtic-supporting ex-Communist Catholic Unionist. Is it any wonder that everyone seems to hate me?”
John Reid
“I regard this as the greatest honour of my life. When you come to this club, you leave the background, religious division, and political division behind. This is not a forum for political debate. I am a member of the Celtic family and a lifelong supporter.”
Reid said at Celtic AGM on his appointment as chairman (Nov 07)
Responding on Thursday [20 Nov 08] afternoon, the Celtic chairman said: “We all want to be a little indulgent to David [Murray] on his 20th anniversary, but I’m not entirely sure of the points he is trying to make regarding inference and innuendo. In any case, no one should be under any illusion that in defending the welfare of Celtic and our supporters I will continue to comment when appropriate, without fear or favour. I know we all welcome David’s respect for Celtic’s traditions and we congratulate him on 20 years at Rangers Football Club”.
In response to Rangers chairman David Murray’s thinly veiled attack on John Reid (below) (Nov 08)
| (BBC) Rangers chairman Sir David Murray has urged his Celtic counterpart John Reid to be more careful with his comments. Reid has condemned a section of the Rangers support for singing the Famine Song this season. “I’m recently a wee bit concerned by some of the inferences and innuendo that’s come from John,” said Murray. The Rangers chairman, who bought the club for £6m in 1988, was speaking exclusively to the BBC to mark his 20th year in charge of the Ibrox club. The Famine Song refers to events that killed an estimated one million people in the 1840s and led to a mass migration from Ireland. During his interview with the BBC, Murray said: “I find it strange that a man could become a member of parliament representing a whole broad church of people from Airdrie and Shotts but then can also be the chairman of a football club and come out with a different slant. “I suppose he can say that because he knows he doesn’t have to be re-elected to be Airdrie & Shotts again. I’m concerned by some of the comments. “I give the utmost respect to Celtic football club – they’ve got a great tradition but I am recently a wee bit concerned by some of the inferences and innuendo that’s come from John and I think he’s got to be careful and realise he’s not barracking in the house of commons any longer. “We are in a society in Scotland where every point and every word is picked up by everybody and he should be very careful with some of the chat.” |
“We don’t seek special treatment for Celtic,” he said. “I have never claimed we are better than anyone else. But we won’t be treated as less than anyone else – those days are gone.”
John Reid takes on the SFA over lies & cover-ups by referees (Nov 2010) (see link)
Articles
David Murray hits back at John Reid
The Ibrox chairman lays into his Celtic counterpart over criticism of Rangers claiming he lacks ‘dignity and integrity’
Graham Spiers (Nov 08)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/scotland/article5201590.ece
Sir David Murray, the Rangers chairman, has chosen the occasion of his 20th anniversary in charge of the club to criticise John Reid, his counterpart at Celtic, whom Murray says has “crossed the line” in terms of alleged attacks Reid has made on the Ibrox club.
Murray heavily implied yesterday that Reid had lacked “dignity and integrity” in some of his recent comments about Rangers, even claiming that it was “dangerous” for a politician such as Reid to become an Old Firm chairman.
The Celtic chairman has spoken out about The Famine Song – the latest favoured chant of the Ibrox faithful – claiming that it is “racist” and “vicious”, and has even urged the police to wade in and arrest Rangers supporters under new legislation in Scotland.
Murray, who says Rangers are doing all they can to get the song stamped out, nonetheless believes that Reid has whipped up an orchestrated political campaign over the issue.
“There is an unwritten rule among Old Firm chairmen that you don’t criticise Rangers or Celtic, but I do find that this has changed since John Reid arrived,” Murray said. “I did not go out my way to criticise [Artur] Boruc [the Celtic goalkeeper, involved in various incidents including making hand gestures at the Rangers fans]. I did not go out my way to criticise the things that Richard Gough was called over the years. I could go on and on, so I’ve been disappointed with some of the comments John has made.
“He has taken a few shots at us. We have not responded because there has been an unwritten rule between Rangers and Celtic that you show respect, and I will continue to do that. When you are the chairman of Rangers or Celtic, you have to be very careful. There is a strong argument, especially in the west of Scotland, that for a politician to become a chairman of a football club could be verging on being a bit dangerous.”
Murray claimed that Reid had tried to make unfair capital over The Famine Song – knowing that Rangers could be embarrassed – and that the issue had been wrongly politicised.
“We are not denying that The Famine Song is wrong, but I know that members of his [Reid’s] political party encouraged the song to become a public item on the agenda,” Murray said. “I think John has to remember that he’s not in the House of Commons now. This is the west of Scotland, the world of Rangers and Celtic, and I think we all have a responsibility to act in a sensible manner.
“I could comment on all sorts of things, such as the recent poppy business at Parkhead [where the fans were invited to clap rather than observe a minute’s silence], but that’s their business. All you are going to do is start an argument. I like to think this club [Rangers] shows a lot more dignity in many things. Because John Reid says things in his style, it doesn’t mean we should follow. We try to do it with a bit of dignity and integrity.”
Reid last night dismissed Murray’s comments, claiming that “when it comes to defending the welfare of Celtic, I will continue to comment without fear or favour.”
Old Firm chairmen clash as Reid stands by his ‘racism’ claim
The World Is Weary Of Statesmen
(Celtic Underground)
Written by Lachiemor
Friday, 19 November 2010 22:33
“The world is wearyof statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.”
Benjamin Disraeli
Yesterday I was unable to attend the AGM of Celtic PLC for the first time in several years. It might appear facile to say that a visit to the dentist seemed a preferable use of my time, but given the wait for NHS appointments these days this statement is the truth .
Glad though I was to have my dental needs attended to, I had a frissant of regret that I could not be in two places at the same time. This feeling however lasted only as long as it took to watch John Reid’s performance on the Huddle online last night.
From my reading of today’s Herald report on the AGM it would appear that an unusually compliant audience allowed our formal New Labour Bully Boy to dodge a bullet, in that his extraordinarily incompetent performance as Chairman of our great club was allowed to pass relatively unmarked, while the meeting focussed on such contentious issues as the Poppy saga and how the SFA conducts its business.
On the Huddle programme we witnessed the post AGM press conference in which Reid directed all his fire – and the attention of the media – on Dougie McDonald’s mendacity and the SFA’s response to such. Given that he has presided over the resurrection of a moribund Rangers and passed up on a never likely to be repeated opportunity to bury them once and for all, his smug, self righteous tone and his attempt to divert our attention away from the real issues facing our club are nothing less than insulting to everyone who really loves Celtic.
Yes we know that the question of fair treatment at the hands of match officials is a never-ending story as far as Celtic are concerned – it was ever thus – and I am unsure how even a root and branch review of the SFA will change this, but to focus everyone’s attention on a referee who not only proved himself incompetent but cowardly, is a diversion from the real issue, which to my mind is one of institutional bias.
Perhaps Neil Lennon has given the question of our relationship with referees and their assistants new focus with his outbursts, but David Hay, Tommy Burns, Billy McNeill and the great Stein himself have all in their turn directed their fire at these hapless stool pigeons with only marginal effect.
In recent podcasts, Eddie and various contributors have explored the puzzle as to why foreign officials can be corrupt but ours are inviolate and above reproach – guilty at worst of ‘honest mistakes’.
It may be the stuff of urban legend, but Tommy Burns was ordered off in the semi-final of the league cup against the Dark Side by a referee called H. Alexander for disputing an outrageous penalty award when Celtic were leading 1-0 and playing very well. The story goes that Burns made a comment to the referee asking him ‘How many suits did you get?’- this being a reference to a report at the time that one of our officials received gifts of Italian suits when in charge of a European tie involving I think Juventus – a match which the Italians won.
While Burns alleged enquiry brought him his marching orders, he should have known that Scottish officials need no such incentives when it comes to handing the Huns a lifeline.
My annoyance over this focus on the officials stems from a belief that it afforded Reid an opportunity to sidetrack, to take the AGM and the subsequent press conference away from any real analysis of why on his watch, one incompetent and unfathomable decision after another saved Rangers from Bankruptcy.
Going back to the transfer window 2 seasons ago, where we chose to sign only Willo Flood and decided against paying the going rate for Stephen Fletcher in the event handing the title to the Huns because we ran out of goals at a crucial point in the season. The squad we had should have been capable of delivering the championship, but the acquisition of Fletcher certainly would not have hindered our effort and given how he played after moving south would surely have enhanced our chances. This penny pinching not only cost us £10m Champions League revenue, but actually paid it straight into the empty coffers at the Death Star.
That he followed this gross mismanagement by appointing the hapless Tony Mowbray only compounds his liability. Anyone who watched Mowbray’s teams at Hibs and West Brom would have known that they were easy on the eye, but also relatively easy to beat. How the board could seek a replacement for Strachan from a team who had just been relegated will remain one of life’s great mysteries. The main beneficiaries of this choice were again the Huns whose automatic entry into another Champions League bonanza was all but guaranteed by Christmas.
Yes I hear you say, Tony was unlucky and his team suffered from the same sort of honest mistake as the current group, but that would be to cover up what was a palpable error of judgement by the board and its chairman.
The other diverting issue was the poppy and its place on the shirt. To my mind the Green Brigade scored a colossal own goal with their banner. Not only did it take the media attention away from Dallas, McDonald and the SFA, but it gave John Reid another card to play at the AGM where time was spent in discussing the true purpose of Remembrance Sunday and how we as a club and a support ought to respond to this event, rather than permitting any real scrutiny of the unmitigated failure of the last two seasons.
Perhaps am being too naïve in expecting the AGM to provide any real spotlight on the performance of the main players. As Eddie observed in the podcast before it, they are so tightly controlled and structured that they really do not offer a forum for debate. To expect Tony Hamilton in his televised interview with the Chairman to even think of asking Reid a difficult or potentially embarrassing question would be like expecting a turkey to vote for Christmas.
When I think of the abuse that Brian Quinn used to take in his period in charge I am astounded that Reid gets such an easy ride, not only at the Nuremberg style AGM, but from the press. Quinn’s biggest fault, as I have suggested here before, was that he felt obliged to tell us unwelcome truths at the wrong time – but at least he did tell the truth.
I never ever felt I was being conned by Brian Quinn – irritating he sometimes was, but he presided over a period of success both on and off the field such as we have never known before. Yes Stein’s great side racked up greater success while we had the odd slip up along the way during Quinn’s years, but the financial position he left far exceeded anything that the families achieved during big Jock’s tenure.
The Herald’s report on the AGM suggested that Reid had a couple of digs at Rangers’financial situation. What a laugh. During his time his greatest achievement has been to rescue them from oblivion.
I know that he is a puppet for Dermot Desmond, but his smug self satisfaction and his ‘pride’at being Chairman of Celtic Football club are an affront to right minded Tims everywhere.
What more should we expect? Reid was a key performer in a government who would not have known truth, honesty and integrity if these virtues had bitten them in the behind. In this he is simply being himself. Anyone who thought he could have offered anything else to Celtic Football Club was suffering from a delusion on a similar scale to Reid’s own if he thinks that we are in any way taken in by his cheery avuncular manner, which hides as I suggested last year – a junk yard dog.
John Reid bows out as whisky magnate Ian Bankier is the new toast of Celtic
The Scotsman
Published Date: 04 June 2011
By STEPHEN HALLIDAY
JOHN Reid is to resign as chairman of Celtic later this year, and he will be replaced by Ian Bankier, a 59-year-old whisky executive and former corporate lawyer, who joined the club’s board of directors yesterday.
The largely unexpected announcement signals the end of heavyweight Labour politician Reid’s colourful and often high-profile four-year tenure at Celtic. Now Baron Reid of Cardowan, since his elevation to the House of Lords last year, the 64-year-old will formally step down as chairman at the club’s annual general meeting in October.
Reid insists it is “the right time” for a change at the head of the Celtic board and sources close to the club stressed there had been no pressure applied on him to quit.
His appointment in November 2007 did not meet with the universal approval of Celtic supporters, many of them making clear their opposition to his role in Britain’s deployment of troops to Afghanistan as defence secretary in Tony Blair’s government.
His first season at Celtic saw Gordon Strachan win a third successive SPL title for the club, prompting Reid to proclaim him their best manager since Jock Stein. Failure to win the championship in 2009 prompted Strachan’s departure and saw Reid instrumental in the ill-starred appointment of Tony Mowbray as his successor.
Celtic won three trophies during Reid’s chairmanship, most recently the Scottish Cup under Neil Lennon’s management, but he believes the club are now well placed to enjoy greater success on and off the pitch in the coming seasons.
“It has been an honour to have been chairman of this great club for the past four years,” said Reid. “I will always be grateful for the support, encouragement and friendship I have received from Dermot Desmond and my colleagues on the board, the management and staff and, above all, the greatest supporters any club chairman could wish. That is something I will forever value.
“We have come through a challenging period, but I believe we have come through stronger than ever. We now have in place a new, young talented managerial team led by Neil Lennon and capable of great things. Equally, we have recruited and shaped a new, young and talented squad whose promise for the future we have only begun to glimpse.
“Under Peter Lawwell’s stewardship we have weathered the storm of financial recession that has so badly afflicted other clubs. Hopefully, we have provided impetus to the reform of our wider football institutions. Above all, throughout all of these challenges we stood together, more united than ever.
“Rebuilding and renewal is a continuing process on the park. And so it must also be on our board of directors.
Over the past few years we have followed a policy of continually refreshing the board with new, talented members. I believe this is now the right time to do likewise with the chairmanship, to lead us through the next stage of our development from the next AGM, and ensuring an orderly and smooth transition.
“I have great pleasure in welcoming Ian Bankier, who joins the board as our new director and chairman designate. Chairman of Celtic is a demanding role but Ian is someone of considerable experience and achievement. He will be a formidable addition to the board and will greatly strengthen our development over the coming years.
“For my part, I will always be grateful for the opportunity and the comradeship which I have received. I will leave the chairman’s post as I joined it, a Celtic supporter first and last.”
Bankier, who read law at Edinburgh University before becoming a partner of leading Glasgow law firm McGrigor Donald, is currently the executive chairman and part-owner of Glenkeir Whiskies. His company operates the Whisky Shop chain, which is the UK’s largest specialist retailer of whiskies. He has been involved in the Scotch whisky industry for 15 years, having been managing director of Burn Stewart Distillers and chief executive of CL World Brands. His daughter, Imogen Bankier, is one of Scotland’s leading badminton players.
He will become the 15th chairman of Celtic in the club’s 123-year history and is relishing the challenge.
“I was brought up in Glasgow and have spent much of my career here and in Scotland,” said Bankier. “As a long-standing supporter of the club I feel very privileged to be invited not only to join the board of Celtic, but later to become its chairman. I am looking forward to it tremendously and hope that my own contributions to the future success and well-being of this extraordinary club will be as positive and beneficial as those of my predecessors.”
Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell paid tribute to outgoing chairman Reid and welcomed Bankier’s arrival.
“John has been an extremely committed and enthusiastic chairman, and is a true Celtic supporter,” said Lawwell. “The entire Celtic executive, management and staff acknowledge the contribution he has made to the club over the last four years. We are looking forward to working with Ian as he settles into his new role as a director and chairman designate.”
Celtic manager Lennon issued his own vote of thanks to Reid who has been a committed backer of the former club captain since he replaced Mowbray last year.
“I have benefited enormously from an excellent relationship with the chairman in my short time as Celtic manager,” said Lennon. “He has provided me with great support and valuable guidance through some very difficult times. He has been a passionate advocate for the club and the team and we all wish him well.”
Last Updated: 03 June 2011 11:09 PM
Source: The Scotsman
Location: Edinburgh
Related Topics: Celtic FC
Extract from John Reid’s new book on Irish famine
(The Scotsman)
Published on Thursday 11 October 2012 08:52 IN AN exclusive extract from a new book about the Irish Famine, John Reid says that without the Great Hunger, it is unlikely there would ever have been a Celtic Football Club.
Despite some advances in the provision of support for the poor on the part of the Board of Supervision and Poor Relief, during the period of Celtic’s founding, the vast majority of Glasgow’s poor had no safety net. This was at a time when medical science had no answers to the tuberculosis, whooping cough and measles that contributed to the persistence of appalling mortality rates among infants. Around six out of 1,000 pregnancies ended with the death of the mother.
Ill-health accompanied poverty and social deprivation, even among the employed. In the 1880s, almost 27 per cent of the adult male workforce in Glasgow earned no more than the basic minimum of £1 per week. Many people were frequently unemployed, while some of the worst housing in Europe existed in the Glasgow area. Despite Glasgow being well on its way to becoming the shipbuilding capital of the world during the 1880s, with the Clyde producing almost a fifth of the world’s shipping output by the time of the First World War, the life expectancy for men in Scotland was 42 and for women 45.
In the decades after the Great Hunger had subsided, football had become a highly popular game throughout Britain, especially among the working classes. In Glasgow, Sligo-born Brother Walfrid, a member of the Catholic Marist order, and some of his Irish-Catholic immigrant compatriots, saw in the development of the game an opportunity to raise money and feed poor immigrant Irish Catholics in the east end of the city. Walfrid, whose real name was Andrew Kerrins, had been a child in Ballymote, Co Sligo, during the famine and had witnessed much suffering firsthand. In promoting his idea of founding Celtic, Walfrid, a teaching missionary to the Irish-Catholic community in Glasgow, intended also to keep Catholics within the faith (and out of the reaches of proselytism via Protestant soup kitchens), while also raising the confidence and moral of that community. Although several men were crucial to the foundation and success of Celtic Football Club, it is Brother Walfrid who is generally credited as providing the main driving force in its foundation.
At the time of Celtic’s founding in 1887-88, the words Catholic and Irish were interchangeable in the west of Scotland. And charitable, social and political activities were equally intertwined. Celtic’s donations to charity frequently included causes such as the Evicted Tenants’ Fund, then an important feature of Irish nationalist politics; and like many other members of their community, they were also pre-occupied with the perennial question of Irish politics, Home Rule. For example, John Glass (of Donegal parentage), president and director of the club in its formative years, was an outstanding figure in nationalist circles, prominent in the Catholic Union, a founder of the O’Connell branch of the Irish National Foresters and treasurer of the Home Government branch of the United Irish League. Another member, William McKillop, became MP for North Sligo while celebrated Irish patriot Michael Davitt (former revolutionary/Fenian and founder of the Irish Land League), was one of the club’s original patrons.
And the efforts and energies of all associated with Celtic often extended well beyond just Home Rule-related issues. In Scotland, for instance, they were directed into supporting the contentious Catholic endeavour to have their schools brought within the state-funded system in Scotland. So, while the origins of Celtic can certainly be placed within the context of the spread of football and football clubs as a recreational phenomenon accompanying the growth of the industrial and working class, it is equally certain that, with Celtic, there were unique additional characteristics. The founding of Celtic FC from within the Irish Catholic immigrant community became a symbol of pride while reflecting a capacity to celebrate heritage and culture, despite often-abject misery and poverty and religious and social marginalisation.
But much more than this, this new Scottish football club, though steeped in its Irish heritage, chose through its very name – Celtic – to build a linking bridge between the Irish and the Scottish, between past and present, and signalled from the beginning in its aspiration and approach a rejection of the very discriminatory conditions which surrounded it. Crucially then, though Celtic was founded by and primarily for Irish Catholics, it was never exclusively so.
The club’s subsequent history of employing as players and staff, and being supported by people, of all religions and none, has reflected this ethos. And so, although a part of the region’s Irish heritage, Celtic’s involvement in football allowed its supporting Catholic immigrant community to integrate with and share in a popular cultural activity of many people in Scotland. Football and Celtic provided avenues for interaction and co-operation with the host community, despite ethnic cleavage in the wider society.
Celtic’s hybrid nature as a central aspect of the Irish diaspora in Scotland positioned it as a Scottish institution of Irish heritage. It was in that way that it became known locally, internationally and then globally. By the 1960s and 1970s, Celtic had become one of the greatest teams in world football, winning the European Champions Cup in 1967.
Members of the Irish community in Glasgow who had lived through the famine and its consequences in both Ireland and Scotland were the people who founded Celtic FC. The club was initially supported by members of the same community while many of its first players were the direct offspring of people who had survived the Great Hunger.
In this new millennium, and as the jewel in the sporting crown of the Irish diaspora, most of the club’s support is made up from descendants of famine and subsequent generations of Irish immigrants to Scotland. Unlike any other such sporting institution, Irishness is celebrated and can be witnessed at Celtic matches and social gatherings through the songs, colours and flags of its army of supporters. Since the early 1990s, one of the club’s most significant anthems has been the Irish ballad The Fields of Athenry, which tells a small though important story of love, rebellion and emigration during the famine.
So it was fitting that, in 2009, Celtic FC joined in with others in Ireland and among the Irish diaspora worldwide to remember Ireland’s Great Hunger by wearing a match jersey embroidered with a commemorative Celtic Cross and the words “Irish National Memorial Day” included.
“Man’s inhumanity to man”, wrote Burns, “makes countless thousands mourn.” The Great Irish Hunger of the mid-19th century destroyed and rendered desolate the lives of millions. The legacy of the famine lives on in the economic, social, cultural and political lives of subsequent generations of people who remain on the island of Ireland as well as among the multi-generational diaspora abroad.
Among the many relevant narratives of the Irish Famine experience in Ireland and particularly the diaspora, those pertaining to Scotland have often been marginalised or omitted in relevant commentary. This short history of some aspects of that experience reveals that accounts of how the Great Irish Famine subsequently affected life in Scotland reflect comparable as well as rich and distinctive features among the narratives that comprise the broader famine story.
This year, as in previous years, all associated with Celtic FC will commemorate the Irish Famine and those whose lives were lost or blighted as a result. Without the Great Hunger, it is unlikely that there would ever have been a Celtic Football Club. Perhaps those of us at Celtic could claim, though in a much more modest way, that without Celtic Football Club there would be one less living, breathing, celebrated reminder of the awful consequences of that terrible and historic tragedy, the Irish Famine.
• John Reid is a former UK cabinet minister and former chairman of Glasgow Celtic FC. This is an extract of his contribution, Irish Famine Refugees and the Emergence of Celtic Football Club, to The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, published by Cork University Press and launched last night. More details at http://greatirishfamine.ie