Irish Clubs in Scotland

[PossilYM]

Glasgow Hibs a breakawy from Celtic who lasted one season and played at Polmadie a few hundred yards away from Shawfield.

[ICTChris]

On 28/07/2023 at 17:53, Autistisches Nilpferd said:

On 28/07/2023 at 18:07, Jacksgranda said:

Blantyre Celtic

There was also an Inverness Celtic if memory serves me right.

There was an Inverness Celtic in the 1880s but not sure if it was an Irish team. The name was proposed as the potential title of a merged Inverness side in the 1930s I think.  
 

I think Celtic was suggested in more if a Gaelic sense, like Celtic connections rather than an Irish sense. There is an Oban Celtic shinty team but, according to Wiki at least, they tossed a coin to choose between Celtic and Rangers as a name.

Theres also a Lerwick Celtic in the Shetland football league but I doubt that is an Irish team.

Edited July 30, 2023 by ICTChris

[LongTimeLurker]

13 hours ago, ICTChris said:

...Theres also a Lerwick Celtic in the Shetland football league but I doubt that is an Irish team.

Always thought that, Thistle and I guess to a certain extent Spurs as well were strange names for Shetland teams given the locals usually prefer the Viking angle to their history, but my Shetland granny always used to say stuff about Lerook folk not being real Shetlanders. Beyond that the Ireland in Shetland is too small to have a fitba team and is in Ness United territory.

Edited July 31, 2023 by LongTimeLurker

[sfha]

19 hours ago, ICTChris said:

There was an Inverness Celtic in the 1880s but not sure if it was an Irish team. The name was proposed as the potential title of a merged Inverness side in the 1930s I think.  
 

I think Celtic was suggested in more if a Gaelic sense, like Celtic connections rather than an Irish sense. There is an Oban Celtic shinty team but, according to Wiki at least, they tossed a coin to choose between Celtic and Rangers as a name.

Theres also a Lerwick Celtic in the Shetland football league but I doubt that is an Irish team.

The Celts was one option that was considered by Queen's Park but with Highland connotations

[ICTChris]

Different sport and country but there is a rugby league team in Port Talbot called Aberavon Fighting Irish - club was formed in 2003 and relaunched in the post-Covid era.

https://www.aberavonfightingirish.com/about

 

[PossilYM]

On 31/07/2023 at 15:00, sfha said:

The Celts was one option that was considered by Queen's Park but with Highland connotations

And Larkhall considered Celtic but settled on Thistle.

[LongTimeLurker]

Irvine Meadow's ground originally belonged to a club called Irvine Celtic.

https://www.irvinemeadowfc.co.uk/meadow-history-page

[MEADOWXI]

On 02/08/2023 at 11:39, LongTimeLurker said:

Irvine Meadow's ground originally belonged to a club called Irvine Celtic.

https://www.irvinemeadowfc.co.uk/meadow-history-page

That is one of the reasons for Meadows name, Irvine Celtic owned and played at Meadow Park.

As was some traditions if a 2nd team came and rented the park the oft took the name of the park and to ensure you knew which sport they played had the roman numerals of the number of players (XI - 11 football, XV - 15 rugby). 

So as we were 2nd team just renting and playing football the name Irvine Meadow XI was created.

When Irvine Celtic folded the Meadow took over, and eventually bought the ground, but the name stuck.

And it why Irvine Meadow XI is the full name of the club, don't think any other club held onto the roman numerals.

[PossilYM]

Muirkirk Hibs

[sfha]

On 22/08/2023 at 16:35, MEADOWXI said:

That is one of the reasons for Meadows name, Irvine Celtic owned and played at Meadow Park.

As was some traditions if a 2nd team came and rented the park the oft took the name of the park and to ensure you knew which sport they played had the roman numerals of the number of players (XI - 11 football, XV - 15 rugby). 

So as we were 2nd team just renting and playing football the name Irvine Meadow XI was created.

When Irvine Celtic folded the Meadow took over, and eventually bought the ground, but the name stuck.

And it why Irvine Meadow XI is the full name of the club, don't think any other club held onto the roman numerals.

This is why there was a plethora of Junior teams in the 19th and early 20th Century called the likes of Ibrox XI (Rangers), Clune XI (PGA), Rugby XI (Kilmarnock) etc. These names soon disappeared and names like Morton Juniors and East Fife Juniors became fashionable until the 1930s when the SJFA began to frown on Junior clubs with Senior connections.

[rollstar]

On 28/07/2023 at 22:50, invergowrie arab said:

I think inverness had the first post reformation cathedral 

Late to this party with a nitpick; Inverness Cathedral was the first Protestant cathedral to be built post-reformation, in other words it's Episcopalian. For the RC church, Inverness is in the Aberdeen diocese.

[greendot]

If one of the criteria of being an irish club is having the word Harp in the name then I'd put forward Brechin Harp who merged with Brechin Hearts to form Brechin City in 1906 https://www.brechincity.com/bcfc/p/g/5

[sfha]

18 hours ago, greendot said:

If one of the criteria of being an irish club is having the word Harp in the name then I'd put forward Brechin Harp who merged with Brechin Hearts to form Brechin City in 1906 https://www.brechincity.com/bcfc/p/g/5

Although it's often cited that Hearts and Harp merged, Harp had actually disbanded as the majority of their players as well as the secretary had joined the new senior club. Hearts continued until WW2... [https://alexwood.org.uk/2012/08/04/brechin-city-the-early-years/]

"The juniors, particularly Harp and Hearts, had been doing so well in their sphere, that was urged that here was the nucleus of a first class organization.”

The initial public meeting to launch Brechin City FC, held in the Temperance Hall on 25th May 1906, indeed considered that, rancour between Harp and Hearts notwithstanding, “difficulties in the way of amalgamation were not insurmountable”.

Brechin Harp and Brechin Hearts may indeed have provided the personnel for the nucleus of Brechin City but there was no amalgamation.  Mr R.N. Clift, secretary of Brechin Harp became secretary of the new senior club when the office-bearers of the new Brechin City FC were elected at a committee meeting on Thursday 31 May 1906.  As well as Clift, the office bearers of the new club were Alexander Potter, president, James Johnstone, vice-president and George Cumming, treasurer.[41]  These men were artisans and tradesmen.  George Cumming, aged thirty five and originally from Fraserburgh, was a self-employed printer.  Alex Potter, thirty two years old and born in Friockheim, was employed as a Linen Cloth Stamper.  Robert Clift, aged twenty four and born in Brechin, was a linen factory worker.
The annual general meeting of Brechin Hearts FC however, took place on the following evening[42] and while Brechin Harp, which provided the new club’s secretary and the largest single contingent of its players, seems to have ceased to exist very shortly after this point, Brechin Hearts continued an active and reasonably successful existence until during the First World War.  In fact Harp’s last recorded game, the disastrous replayed cup semi-final on 3rd August 1906, was a defeat at the hands of Brechin Hearts."

[greendot]

^^ that's a fantastic archive on that link

[sfha]

8 minutes ago, greendot said:

^^ that's a fantastic archive on that link

Alex had written to me many years ago about his site which covers the years up to 1920

[LongTimeLurker]

Robert Clift doesn't sound like the sort of name you would expect for the secretary of an Irish emigrant club, and how big an Irish RC community could there have been in Brechin at that time anyway? Brechin isn't exactly a huge place even today and it's well away from the old coalfields. Suspect it may not be a safe assumption that every club called Harp back then was automatically Irish any more than it would be safe to assume that having a junior club called Brechin Matrix later on was a tribute to the film career of Keanu Reeves. What we associate with a name nowadays may not be how people in rural Angus would have viewed it over a century ago.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

7 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Robert Clift doesn't sound like the sort of name you would expect for the secretary of an Irish emigrant club, and how big an Irish RC community could there have been in Brechin at that time anyway? Brechin isn't exactly a huge place even today and it's well away from the old coalfields. Suspect it may not be a safe assumption that every club called Harp back then was automatically Irish any more than it would be safe to assume that having a junior club called Brechin Matrix later on was a tribute to the film career of Keanu Reeves. What we associate with a name nowadays may not be how people in rural Angus would have viewed it over a century ago.

There was/is a large Irish/traveller community in Blairgowrie based around agricultural labouring. No idea about Brechin, but possibly something similar?

[bluearmyfaction]

A few other senior teams:

-Smithstone Hibs (whose name seemed to be Hibs, not Hibernian)

-St Peter's (the one Queen's Park beat 16–0 - started off as Partick Hibernians, shirt colours described as light blue but I'm guessing St Patrick's blue, like behind the harp on the royal coat of arms)

-Dumbarton Rock (Irish teetotallers who worked on the ships)

-almost certainly Shaughraun (played in green, changed name to Milton of Campsie, maybe to widen the support/player base, named after a play - am waiting for Mousetrap F.C.)

-the original 1868-edition Airdrie (probably more coincidence than design, started off by Irish workers and they sort of ended up stuck with only Irish workers, with other teams like Excelsior and Benhar being founded around them)

-Hamilton Hibernians (had the chance to take over South Haugh from a moribund Academical, turned it down, and the Accies decided to soldier on pro tem)

-Hamilton Harp

-Paisley Celtic

-and the other Dundee Harp, who started off as the other Dundee Hibernians, briefly active in the 1890s

 

Celtic is not necessarily an indicator of Irishness, at least in the pre-1888 era, given Celtic chose the name because it incorporated Scotland as well - the first Celtic club was a one-off side from about 1871.