Lennon Calls For An End To Offensive Chanting

PIRA chants should stop.

but singing songs about Irish soldiers fighting for their country e.g Sarsfield, UI, 1798, 1916 nothing wrong with singing about that.

 

Excellent posts from you and Kemso. Unfortunately like rangers we have some of our own with their own agenda and again we will be tarnished with the same brush This is despite the fact that a great number of our support don't wish to be associated with Irish politics and see no place for it in football. Lenny the greatest manager we've ever had in my lifetime lives and breathes Celtic and knows what it's all about more than most...........if the chanters can't or wont listen to him I can see this all ending very badly for our club

Moving on isn't about forgetting our history as a people or as a club it's about making new history......if we don't evolve as a forward thinking club we will be left to rot and fester.

 

dont understand why people would sing anything but celtic songs when at a celtic game. politics and religion should have no place in football.

 

I know they find them offensive Padmill, but thats down to their ignorance. Me personally, I will never turn my back on our Club's founders, or indeed my family's own background, but like I have said in my previous post, so long as that TRICOLOUR continues to fly over our stadium, then I am happy. No one is asking any of you to ditch your political perspective of the Irish situation, and certainly for any to suggest that Neil Lennon is asking that, then you are way off the mark. Let me ask all the people, who are having a dig at Neil Lennon, and also having a dig at people on here, who happen to voice the same opinion as Lenny, How many of you actually play an active role in supporting the cause for a united Ireland, how many of you actually, march in the pro-united Ireland protests. How many are members of say for example the James Connolly Movement, very few I would imagine. Look at Neil Lennon's own background, born and raised right in the middle of all the strife, and still having to endure the hatred of the bigots. If you know the history as the saying goes, you will be aware that some of our great leaders of the 1916 rebellion, were non-catholic, yet laid their lives down, all for the cause of a United Ireland. I suggest some of the people on here should read the Proclaimation declared by the Provisional Government, of the Irish Republic, to the People of Ireland, in 1916. These same principles, and fight still exist today, and I personally still openly declare my support. So please, lets cut out this fecking nonsense,and stop attacking our own kind. All Lenny is saying is lets be selective in the choice of songs we sing, no one is suggesting the "Soldier Song" shouldnt be sung, no one is saying to stop singing "The Fields", the guy is only asking us to be sensible in our selection, and I for one applaud Neil Lennon, for making this call. On Sunday, the footballing world applauded our support, we stood united on the slopes of Parkhead, behind our team, and behind our Manager, a Manager who openly declared, that he wouldn't have survived the pressures of the vicious attacks on him and his family, without the backing of the supporters, the players, and the Club. A recent memory, will never leave me until my dying day, and that was when I saw Neil Lennon, enter the field at Tynecastle, after the game last week, you saw the shock, and the pain in that guy's face, after all he has had to endure, but you also saw his eyes welling up with emotion and determination to succeed, for Celtic Football Club, and its supporters. Our proud saying on Sunday was "We are all Neil Lennon", do some of you want to desert that saying now by viciously attacking the man on here. Well, I for one, will never desert him, and I will never desert my Irish beliefs. Go for it Lenny, I pay good money to support my team, and I am proud to sing my Celtic Songs.

 

Im gonna ask a simple question to the Irish users.

I go to watch Galway United 2-3 times a season and never heard any rebel songs from either home or away fans. This is an Irish club in Ireland.

So why do people feel the need to sing Irish song in Scotland if they dont even sign them at their own stadiums in their own country? Are we missing something?

 

I personally don't have a problem with the old rebel songs but do we really need to be singing them anymore. We complain that the Rangers fans still harp on about events from 1690, yet we still go on about events that happened nearly 100 years ago.

The old songs need to be kept alive, but maybe not for stadium use. People are starting to point the finger in our direction and sometimes you have to make concessions. If our stopping IRA songs brings about an end to the sectarian crap from Rangers then it is a price worth paying IMO.

Let me reiterate though, that these songs are political and not sectarian, and that our problem is minute in comparison to that of the Sassenachs.

 

Good call from Neil, let's face it we don't need this distraction, keep to football songs, Celtic are a football club, not a political party.

By doing so we keep the pressure on the Huns to get their house in order, we also put the SFA and the SPL under pressure to stamp out the sectarian songs which we also hear not only at Ibrox, but at Tynecastle, Motherwell, Killie, etc.

We are not the bigots, we are a family and we should always bear this in mind when we are representing Celtic at CP or any other football ground, cut the IRA chants.

 

I get really embarrased with the IRA chants at games. No matter what your political stand point is there are alot of families who have lost innocent loved ones to the IRA and could take alot of offence at. Obviously pro-british/pro-loyalist stuff is also just as offensive to some for similar reasons. We are a club for all no matter what your race/religion/sexuality etc and the songs Lenny is on about could drive people away and give us a bad reputation whether any of us think they are offensive or not. I support Celtic for the team, it's morals and it's history and nothing else I don't care about religion and my political stand point is mine and nothing to do with the club so I don't take it into CP on a Saturday. I also don't like songs like "If you hate the *' Rangers clap your hands" we should put every effort into supporting Celtic and not hating Rangers, I don't care anywhere near enough about them to warrant me singing a song of any kind about them. I have never been prouder to be a Celtic supporter than at the match on Sunday and it that game showed why we are the best in the world.

 

Spot on mate.

 

flabbergasted to see the Boys of the Old Brigade correctly referred to as a perfectly legitimate song in a scottish newspaper today! considering BOTOB is usually cited as a "sectarian" song

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Queen-makes-history-on-first.6770112.jp?articlepage=1

"Where are the lads that stood with me
When history was made?
A Ghra Mo Chroi (love in my heart), I long to see
The boys of the old brigade."

FOR almost three generations it has been sung as a poignant lament for the fallen in the Irish War of Independence. The chorus of The Boys of the Old Brigade asked: "Where are the lads that stood with me when history was made?" Yesterday, the answer was that they lay immortalised in stone, the recipients of a historic bow in Dublin's Garden of Remembrance by a British monarch.

 

As I have said many times before, keep the rebel songs at Celtic Park, but ditch the ridiculous IRA stuff. And before anyone asks again, no, they are not the same thing. There are plenty of Rebs out there which don't explicitly use IRA in their lyrics and these are the ones we should be belting out with pride and these are also the ones that won't draw negative attention to our club and it's supporters.

Not forgetting we have other terrace songs like Just Can't Get Enough, which never fails to create an amazing atmosphere and of course, the almighty Huddle.

If you won't listen to your fellow supporters, listen to Lenny. And if that isn't enough for you, listen to Jock Stein, as someone quoted above me.

 

well said Shane

 

Tell me what's bigoted about republican songs?

 

Good post, nothing wrong with Irish songs being sung at Celtic Park. But no IRA add ons.

Neils right on this one.

 

aye good post, rebels MUST stay, but songs containing "IRA" could be avoided.

 

this has brought unwanted and unnecesary attention

front page of one of the papers today

absolutely not necessary for lennon to come out and say this, when there was nothign being said about it in the media, as far as i'm aware.

 

Boys of the Old Brigade - as sung with the royal seal of approval

 

* stirring sensationalist tabloid pish i assume?

 

I agree mate. Lennon shouldn't have said anything.

 

Its not just the Irish supporters who sing the songs, Scottish guys do it too.

I think maybe because galway is in the south people dont sing those songs as much as they do in the northern league. been to a newry match and never heard any of the rebel songs, maybe cliftonville v linfeild would have those types of songs, i may be wrong

I'm Scottish by the way so probably not the best person to answer but i thought i would anyway since no one else has