The history of Celtic Football Club is pretty unique in football in that it was conceived out of wish to raise money for charitable purposes.

The club was formed by a group of Irish/Scots led by a Mayo-born priest called Brother Walfrid who was instrumental in seeing that the club was formally constituted in St. Mary's Church Hall in East Rose Street (now Forbes Street) in Calton. That was way back on the 6th of November in 1887.

The objectives of the founding fathers of the club were simple - to alleviate the chronic poverty which existed in the parishes which proliferated the east end of Glasgow in the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries.

The newly-established club was an immediate hit with the burgeoning Irish immigrant population on the west of Scotland and when it began to get the better of the already well-established Rangers FC, it became a whole new ball game.......

Produced by Eoin O'Connor

Production Supervision by Lorelei Harris





First broadcast December 1996

An Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One - the home of Irish radio documentaries

