We need to get outta here

To be honest I doubt it would be anywhere near as bad in England because mostly in England the trouble is organised between sets of fans and also the police always come out on top as in England football is heavily policed.

 

What a great post

 

I don't mind them but I can't relate to them in the way that the Irish obviously do and besides what have they got to do with football? I get what people say that their father, granda etc sang them but they don't seem to hold the same relevance for the modern celtic football fan. I prefer footy banter and songs.

 

IRA chants and England dont go together ,that is one of the major stumbling blocks throughout the years of talks when Celtic and rangers have tried to enter that League ,The baggage that comes from these 2 teams is a Scottish problem ,why would any other country want this ,it will never go away as long as these 2 teams excist .

 

Get real. Context/location is everything. What would happen in the US if you had a stadium of people singing islamic terrorist songs and waving Bin Laden flags? No country with any sense of pride will ever find acceptable people singing songs about fighting against it. When you reach almost comical levels of innapropriateness bound to create very deep ill feeling and provoke a reaction. That would be incitement.

 

Its not just ignorance. The RA did some terrible, terrible no warning bombs in the UK. The stuff they did in the 70s in particular was just inhuman. Lots of people, including many tims, find it disgusting for people to support them publically at football grounds in Britain. The third of our history you mention is the third when we went wrong IMO. Irishness started to be expressed way too much in terms of political/historical violence. I dont think this was the case originally. I think the Irish songs were far more religious and old fashioned sentimental ones in the early days. The roots of the club were really focussed on charity and the non-violent aspect of Irish politics as epitomised by B.Walfrid and Michael Davitt who laid the turf respectively. I think this old style Irishness was morphed into something far more dark during the troubles period in Northern Ireland. SO much of Celtic's present day republicanism is directly lifted from attitudes from 70s/80s Northern Ireland its unreal. Its a direct theft and owes very little to the culture of our famine period ancestors.

 

I do see your argument and I do think you have made fair points here.

But don't you think you're justifying the surpression of freedom? You're right to say that question what would happen if

"you had a stadium of people singing islamic terrorist songs and waving Bin Laden flags".

But does that worry justify the expected response that you rightly imply would happen? Sure, there would probably be a riot, but those people waving those flags have a right to do that.

IMO it's peoples intolerence that's the problem, not the songs.

We stand to gain far more by educating intolerence than promoting it.

All it would take is a few articles in some of the bigger news media, telling a bit of history from the viewpoint of the Irish/Irish refugee's, to change many peoples opiniions on the songs we sing.

Maybe then we would be accepted into the EPL and the English would be a freer people for it.

 

Michael Davitt.

The club's founders sung about the Manchester Martyrs during the club's inception so your point about non-violent aspects of Irish politics is nonsense. Revisionist nonsense at that.

 

But so did the British army (Croke Park). Both sides were guilty of killing people.

That's a difficult conclusion to come to, or indeed for me to argue against. True we were a charity, set up to help the poor regardless of religion or country of birth, but the social make-up of Glasgow at that time was such that the poor were prodominantly Irish immigrants, many of whom had fled the North of Ireland to escape the enforced starvation (lack of fertile land, anti-catholic employers, horrendous taxes on meat & fish).

This is as much a part of the make-up of our club as Brother Wilfred's origional vision.

If the English were allowed to know this (I was educated in Engirland, they do not teach you anything about the Irish stuggle in school), they may have more of an understanding of our songs, and more tollerence.

Also, those songs have been sung at our club long before the modern IRA started getting their act together in the 70's.

 

I find it hard to respect people who will chose a crazy venue where they know it will cause hurt and anger to sing songs. I do think a lot of the fun for some of these people is that it is at an away ground and they know offense is being created. Put it this way I dont think anyone who really cares about damping down the divide in Scotland would sing these songs in away grounds. Its not really about history lessons. There could and probably is people in the crowds who have suffered losses in their family due to this fighting. It basically the old fashioned decent thing to do to not sing stuff that may cause hurt to others. There is after all no compelling need to blast our you political beliefs from the rooftops. I think that is insecurity if you feel the need to do that. I just dont get the mentality TBH. it seems a bit daft grown men insisting on boring the fans in various away stadiums about their political beliefs. At someone else's football ground! As for reeducation, the problem is only Celtic fans (and perhaps Rangers fans paradoxically) have any interest of knowledge of Irish history. I think Celtic fans sometimes think other fans are like them and are into Irish history. They are not and never will be. To be honest I have read loads about Irish history and no matter how much I read will make me want to sing songs about war (which I am against) in a football stadium or think its rational for anyone else to.

 

By the time Davitt was associated with Celtic he had moved on and was vehemently against the violent element of Irish republicanism. Go and read WIKI and see where his views were at c. 1888. I dont think Bro. Walfrid would have had him near the place if it wasnt for the fact he had by then become an opponent of violent republicanism.

 

I have heard from old fans (retirement age) that historical songs were really very occasional compared to football ones pre-1970. IN away grounds non-football songs seems really dominant these days.

 

BTW, repect. You debate like a gent

 

Is that not an intrinsic part of football? I hear it in every football match I watch that has a crowd from both sides.

Why not? Again, its football. Its about competition & rivalry.

And as for "The divide", is that really the problem? I can go to an Old Firm game, sing rebel songs, listen to huns singing the Billy Boys, the Famine Song... and meet up with my pal who supports Rangers afterwards and have a few beers with him, a bit of banter and talk about the game.

We don't kill each other. (Mind - you, I do kill him verbally, my banter is better than his).

The divide isn't the root of the problem. The violence is. The majority can have that divide and be peaceful with it.

The British flag causes offence to many people of many different nationalities that live in this island. Is it right or fair to condemn a song whilst ignoring their grievences?

Those people are left to tolerate that flag, and generally they do. So why can't a few songs in a football ground be tolerated?

Maybe not a compelling need, but to some there is a compelling urge. Realistically, there is no need to sing anything at a football match. Some people would be offended if you sang anything.

Excuse me if I don't accept bargain basement psychology.

I disagree with that statement, there are many other fans from other teams. I know several from Engirland.

And even if your statement was accurate, surely that makes us all the more unique? Again I say, its the violence thats the problem, not the differences between us.

You are free to come to that conclusion and indeed you are free to write a song about it and sing it at a football match. May I suggest that you do.

Again, I refuse to accept bargain basement psychology.

 

Thank-you

 

I have to be forthright and say that although Lenny has done verywell with the burden of our BOARD to contend with, I still feel he has not established properly a first regular team on a consistant basis, in most areas and positions in the team, therefor we lack to a degree continuity as a team.
Also we are a disgrace in Europe and Rangers now have three in a row SPL titles, with all indications to me we will be in second place next season once again!
Watching the Hearts game it struck me positives that we do have, one being Izaguirre for me he is my Nakamura, and Commons that ghuy impresses me more and more when I watch him.
What happened to Lenny tells me again, and again I say we aint seen nuthin yit, Celtic should get out of Scottish fitba, biased, bigoted, and sectarian mentality that exists there and it will NOT go away! ​

 

after the baggage that the huns have left this season, bomb threats and now last night
we are not going anywhere