From Patrick’s hills and glens they came,

Their faith in God, each man’s the same.

To build a canal and St Rollox Railway,

Two schools to learn and a Chapel to pray.

Men made of Cork, Canons both,

Collins and Lawton, they kept their oath.

From 13 counties came 32,

To baptise and save me and you.

From Antrim in search of heaven,

James Thompson picked the Roch Guild’s best eleven.

McGhabyn the poor and his culture treasured,

And upon his death the Dial remembered.

From Tyrone via Treaty Stone, Peader McAleer,

From Monaghan, All-Ireland Champion, McNulty we hear.

In ‘57 they gave Irish music it’s just deserved,

And Gaelic tongue they both preserved.

‘Mick Garngad’ from Inishowen,

‘The Good and The Bad’ had a bard of its own,

He wrote of Connolly the worker’s man,

And Liam and Charles who Smashed the Van.

Now up on the hill our voices did roar,

When Chalmers our Lion in Lisbon did score.

And McGrory too – who could give more?

A manager and player 500 did score.

In green and white we watched our bhoys,

For all they done we still make noise.

We wrote of John Thompson and many more,

League, Scottish, Mungo, Coronation and European Cups galore.

Now this I tell is the truth,

So lets all raise the roof!

Remember wherever you trod:

Be proud ‘cos you belong to the ‘Garden of God’

John P Sweeney

St Patrick’s Day 2006

Copyright

(As appeared in Page 8 of ‘Irish Weekly’ Belfast Edition)

There is a place in Glasgow

That comes often to my mind,

My young days they come rolling back

Although they are many years behind.

I remember the day I landed there,

Its people I still recall,

Of the kindness they showed towards me

Just fresh from Donegal.

First they found me lodgings

In a house that was like my home

And many a happy days spent

As around there I did roam.

They tried to find for me a job,

But it was very hard to fix

As that was the year of strikes and strife

To be well remembered,

Nineteen and twenty six.

In time I did get started

Although the job was pretty hard,

But to have cash for my requirements

Sure I was extra glad.

I then met a nice companion,

A girl so sweet and kin

Who was very respected in the district

And hailed from nearby Turner Street.

We talked about our future

As marriage was our plan,

So that’s how I came to wed

My darling Mary Ann.

For years we lived in happiness

And reared a family four,

Until one day God called her,

And closed our marriage door.

Now I sit and ponder on all

The happy days I’ve had.

I will also pray that God will bless

All who lived in once Old Garngad.

By Jim Scott

The Mews

Drogheda

Co Louth.

The following ‘Garngad-Irish Poems and Songs’ were either written about or by people from and/or events related to Garngad with a connection to Ireland:

By Michael ‘Mick Garngad’ McLaughlin, RIP:

‘The Ballad of James Connolly’

‘The Smashing of the Van’

A Poet from ‘Little Ireland’

Mick Garngad by Jim Friel

The district called Garngad, which is only a few hundred yards north of the 12th Century Cathedral of Glasgow has been known for the past hundred years as ‘Little Ireland’. When the Irish navvies, after digging the Monkland Canal, which was opened in 1790, left the bothies to settle in the industrial city, it was tenement districts like the Garngad and Gorbals in which they settled. With the building of the railway lines to the rich mineral deposits of Lanarkshire, these hardy labourers were assured of employment for a decade or two, and in the same locality stood another great industry, the St. Rollox Chemical Works, the largest of its kind in the world.

Mick McLaughlin, or as he was better known by his pen name, Mike Garngad, was born here in the beginning of the century. Like many other Garngad people, Mick was of Irish descent, his parental forbears hailed from the fabled Inishowen peninsula in north Donegal. Mick was well-known as a raconteur, poet, song-writer and practical joker and was a popular figure at Wakes: an Irish tradition which persisted until the demise of the old Garngad itself in the late 1950’s. In the tradition of the old Gaelic shanachie, he chronicled various Glasgow events, particularly in the Gargad-Townhead area. Yet he occasionally wrote verse and song outwith his immediate environment; but some of these creations were unclaimed by the modest Mick. They are still sung to this day without the singer of the wider public being aware of the author’s name.

The best example of this anonymity is Mick’s great tribute to the memory of the Easter Week leader and martyr, the ballad to James Connolly, “Many years have gone by since the Irish rebellion” with its fine stirring air of “Lochnagar”. The lyrics of the latter ranks among the very best of Lord Byron’s works, and it is a tribute to the quality of their work that both songs have long survived, and are very likely to continue to do so. Whenever an Irish theme presented itself, Mick Garngad was more than eager to find immediate inspiration and circulate it in either broadsheet or hand-written form, among his cronies. A good example of this happened in 1921 in the High Street, Glasgow (beside the Garngad) when a number of republican sympathisers tried to rescue Frank Carty (alias Somers) from a prison van, an incident reminiscent of the Manchester Martyrs several decades earlier. Mick wrote his song, “The Smashin’ of the Van” on this event. The song is included in a 1967 ballad collection ‘Rebel Ceilidh Song Book’. This is now a collector’s item and has a foreword by the poet Hugh McDiarmid. Mick was about twenty-one years old at the time when he wrote this ballad and like many more in ‘Little Ireland’, he carried his torch for the freedom and unity of Caitlin Ni Houlihan, until his death in the early 1960’s. Some Garngad men were involved in this incident.

No great promoter of his own fame or fortune, Mick McLaughlan set no higher target for himself than to be the local poet of Garngad and a voice for the Irish community in Glasgow. Almost inevitably this entailed being involved in enthusiastic support for its great favourite football-team, Celtic, and the immortal Jimmy McGrory, a Garngad lad himself and local hero. Countless songs about Celtic poured from the pen of Mick Garngad and among them some of the most cherished ones in the Irish repertoire of the terraces at Parkhead. “The Celtic Song” written by him to the tune of the overture from “The Pirates of Penzance” is famous, as is “Oh Hampden In The Sun!” celebrating the great seven-one victory over Rangers in the League Cup. Mick sold “The Celtic Song” to Gen Daly, the popular music hall singer, for a mere fiver, but this is understandable, as ‘cold cash’ was the least of his objectives. He also wrote that very moving lyric on the tragic death of “the prince of goalies”, Johnny Thompson, from Cardenden, Fife, who lost his life in an ‘Old Firm’ game. Yet for all his pro-Celtic bias, there was always a good sportsmanship side to Mick. It is said that a man bearing an uncanny resemblance to our author was occasionally seen at Ibrox (the Ranger’s base) with song-sheets signed by the anonymous “Blue Knight”. This would not be outside the practical joker side of Mick’s character which deserves some notice on its own account. He also wrote the popular “Barlinnie Blues”, part of Glasgow folklore. “There’s bars on the windaes…”

A touch of harmless fun has for centuries been a warm ingredient of the traditional Irish character. Mick McLaughlan had this quality in plenty. One of the humorous anecdotes related about him tells how he boasted to a stranger in a Garngad pub how he had inherited the mighty strength of the great Irish giant, Finn MacCool, and to prove it, he would the very next morning at ten-o-clock uproot a telegraph pole in the main street and carry it down the High St. to Glasgow Cross. Bets were laid and next morning a small crowd, including the challenger and the bold Mick appeared on the hour at a telegraph pole which conveniently lay beside a police-box. Just as Mick bent down and set himself to the task, a burly cop emerged from the box with hand-cuffs. “Oh no you don’t, Mick, not this time! That’s the third pole you’ve nicked this week an’ if you dare, it’s Barlinnie jail for ye!” The stranger, unaware that it was all pre-arranged, pleaded with Mick to let the pole lie and settled for a round of drinks. On another occasion, he made bets that Madame Blatavasky’s lectures had endowed him with powerful hypnotic energy which could stop the No. 32 tram on its deep descent of the hill from Provan Mill. This experiment was carried out successfully, but of course he concealed from the spectators that the tram-driver and he were old buddies. Mick McLaughlan was such a well-beloved character of Garngad, that he has become an outstanding legendary figure of the district to this day.

In the 1950’s and early 60’s, many of the old tenements were demolished and their tenants ‘transported’ to the huge, rather bleak and soulless housing schemes (the graveyards with electric light) on Glasgow’s periphery. Garngad, though it still exists, was robbed of an essential part of its character and colour. Mick wrote its elegy in “Farewell to Garngad” to the same tune as “Skibbereeb”; it is a song which brought a tear to the eye of many an old inhabitant. Michael Keenan’s history of the Garngad in the Mitchell Library devotes two of its pages in a tribute to its local Bard. This is the district where the Radicals and weavers of Glasgow set out from in 1820 in their brave struggle for Freedom at the battle of Bonnymuir. Mick Garngad inherited, not perhaps Finn MacCool’s strength, but the great energy of two great traditions in the struggle, one Scottish, one Irish.

Garngad historian Michael Keenan recalls Mick in a recent poem:

“Where’s Mick McLaughlan the Garngad Rhyme.
The tricks he got up to were ever well known.
The man was a legend in his own time.
His fame on the road it has grown.
He was known to make dour people smile.
And also to make hard men cry.
His poems were simply true Garngad style.
Poets mention his name with a sigh.”

Mick’s origins (like Matt McGinn of the Carlton), lay in the ancient province of Ulster, and like Matt he deserves to be remembered as a man of the people and a bard of the streets.

Jim Friel

Note to Editor – Many other well-known people were born in this Irish enclave on the North side of Glasgow. These include: Jimmy McGrory, Malcolm McDonald, Joe Baillie and ‘Lisbon Lion’ Steve Chalmers of Celtic fame, the former General Secretary of the Print Union Sugat, the late Vincent Flynn and of course the world renowned Villean piper Pat McNulty.

My Garngad Family History; by Paul Kelly

• By Sean O’Brien
• Published 11/24/2008
• Garngad Poems and Songs
• Rating: Unrated

• 

My Garngad Family History: From Ireland to South Africa.

A couple of years ago I became very interested in investigating my family history. I knew that my great grandfather, Hugh Kelly, died in the early 1950s, aged nearly 90 years, at McNeil Street, Hutchesontown, Gorbals. I thought I was going to find a lot of family connections with the Gorbals. Instead, all roads led to Garngad.

Hugh Kelly was born in Meenavoy, Stranorlar, County Donegal in 1866. He moved to Glasgow around 1885 and lodged with his older brother Willie Kelly and family at 27 Villiers Street, Garngad. Hugh married Elizabeth McCormick at St Mungo’s RC Church, Townhead on 18 July 1890. Elizabeth McCormick was born in 1863 near Killygordon, Donegal and moved to Scotland in 1864 as an infant with her parents. The McCormicks settled 1st at Carnbroe, a small North Lanarkshire town between Coatbridge and Bellshill. Elizabeth was the 1st born of the family and the McCormicks had 7 other children, all born in Scotland. One was born in Carnbroe, one in Dalziel(Motherwell), one in Mossend, Bellshill, one at Dalmarnock Road, Bridgeton and the last 3 at Turner Street, Garngad. (4 of these children died as infants). After arriving in Scotland in 1864, the McCormicks spent about 8 years moving from job to job in the North Lanarkshire area before finally settling at 32 Turner Street, Garngad around 1872. Elizabeth’s address is given as 32 Turner St at the time of her marriage to Hugh in 1890.

So where exactly are Turner Street and Villiers Street? Well, they no longer exist! The last time I was home in Glasgow, I purchased an 1894 map of the St Rollox (Townhead, Port Dundas and Garngad) district of Glasgow from the Mitchell library. In 1894, the northern part of Garngad consisted of 4 parallel streets, each running in a south to north direction. Starting from the west, the 4 streets were Turner Street, Villiers Street, Bright Street and Cobden Street. These 4 parallel streets were enclosed on the north by Charles Street and on the south by Garngad Road. Both Charles St and Garngad Road still exist today, though Garngad Road is now called Royston Road. In the late 1800s these 6 congested streets of north Garngad could be described as a ‘Little Ireland’. I have studied the 1881, 1891 and 1901 census records at the Mitchell library. About 90% of the households in Turner St, Villiers St, Bright St and Charles St were headed by a person born in Ireland. Cobden St and Garngad Road had more of a mix of Irish and Scottish families. Overall, however, I would say that about 75% of the households in these 6 streets of north Garngad were Irish households.

To the south of Garngad Road was south Garngad. Here there were streets such as Middleton Place, Gourlay Place, Garngadhill, Tharsis Street, Dunolly Street, Rosemount Street and Millburn Street. I didn’t study the census records for south Garngad as closely, but from what I could see, there was a good mix of Scottish and Irish families. However, it was clear that south Garngad was not as nearly heavily populated as north Garngad in the late 1800s. I understand that south Garngad became more populated in the early 1900s with the building of many new tenements and the creation of several new streets such as Gadshill Street, Glenbarr Street and Rhymer Street.

After marrying in 1890, Hugh Kelly and Eliza McCormick stayed at 248 Charles Street, Garngad. 248 Charles Street was located betweeen the northern entrances to Turner St and Villiers St. My grandfather, James Kelly, was born there in 1895. The Kelly family moved to a ‘better’ home at McNeil Street, Hutchesontown, Gorbals around 1910. After fighting in France in the 1st World War, my grandfather, James Kelly, married my grandmother Sarah Rutherford – who came from Stranorlar, Donegal – in the mid 1920s and had 7 children. My grandparents settled 1st in Bright St, Garngad. In the early 1930s they moved to Gadshill St, Garngad where my father, James Kelly, was born in 1934. The family finally settled at Avonspark St, Balornock after the 2nd World War.

In the slum clearances following the 2nd World War, no part of Glasgow was more decimated than Garngad. Many Garngad families were relocated to the new peripheral Glasgow housing schemes such as Easterhouse. (I understand that one of the 1st major slum clearances in Glasgow was carried out in north Garngad as early as 1933!).

My mother’s father, Michael Connolly, was born in Clea, Keady, County Armagh in 1893. He came to Glasgow around 1915 and lodged at Garngad Road, Garngad with his relatives – the Moans (or Mones). He married my grandmother Sarah McKenzie – who came from Taylor Street, Townhead – in the early 1920s and had 11 children. My maternal grandparents settled 1st in Bright St, Garngad. In the early 1930s they moved to Dinwiddie St, Germiston, where my mother, Ann Connolly, was born in 1937. The family finally settled at Stamford St, Barrowfield after the 2nd World War.

Many things have been written about the Gorbals. Little in comparison is said about Garngad. It is almost forgotten. The fact that Garngad’s name was changed to Royston in 1942 does not help much! It is as if we were meant to forget Garngad. Industrial Glasgow had several Irish ghettoes such as the Gorbals(Hutchesontown), the Calton, parts of Bridgeton and of course Garngad. However, the concentration of Irish families was probably at its highest in Garngad. It has been documented that there was a distinct Garngad accent – half polite, half Irish. Up to the 1950s you could tell someome was from Garngad as soon as they opened their mouth.

My parents met in 1964 and married in 1968. It turned out that my 2 grandmothers knew each other as they had been neighbours at Bright St in the late 1920s and early 1930s. I was born in Garrowhill, Baillieston, Glasgow in 1971 and have lived in Botswana, southern Africa since 1996. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder). Paul Kelly

By Michael ‘Mick Garngad’ McLaughlin, RIP:

‘The Celtic Song’ (Hail! Hail!)

By Daniel McDonagh  : Garngad Irishman living in Canada.

Mother Ireland

Ireland, my Ireland,

To a new world, I must depart,

Today, I travel from your bosom

And it breaks my grieving heart.

I lay by my mother’s graveside

Were a litany of saints, I did pray,

I heard the voice of St.Patrick speak,

Calling for St.Brendan to take me away.

The famine has killed your children,

Left your land barren and diseased,

Now the coffins ships depart from your shore,

Sailing the waters of the Irish Sea.

For I travel over to Scotland

To were St.Columba preached from his soul.

My love for Ireland will never fade

As I travel the miles to Glasgow.

I will return, before my days are gone,

When Our Lord has ploughed the land,

And I will be buried were my mother sleeps,

Led to heaven by St.Brigid’s hand.

Daniel McDonagh  Oct’2006

An Gorta Mór

An Gorta Mór

Forced the Irish nation

To flee their homeland

Of death and starvation.

Forced to immigrate to America,

To New York, Baltimore & Boston

Were the wind-borne potatoe blight

Had been born.

Some crossed the Irish Sea

To the city of Glasgow

To seek refuge in a city

That the Church of Scotland controlled.

They lived within the poverty,

The abuse and oppression,

Obstacles that lay in their path

By the Protestant population.

Glasgow was not the Promised Land

For the Irish Catholic community,

They fought the prejudice and bigotry,

They encountered each day.

The Irish Diaspora cried out to Our Lord

To provide them with a saviour,

For their faith and heritage

Was to be preserved by Brother Walfrid

Daniel McDonagh 2007

Diaspora

No Irish, no Catholics,

No jobs, no trade,

No priest, no church,

No sanctuary to pray.

Send them all back

Send them back home,

Ship them back to Ireland,

Send them to were they belong.

Let them live with poverty

Let them live with the squalor,

Let these migrants starve

Let them die and suffer.

Keep Scotland protestant

No Irish, Catholic faith.

This is the reception

Our ancestors faced.

Daniel McDonagh 2006

They Crossed the Sea on Coffin Ships

Our grandmothers and grandfathers

Left their hearts back in Ireland,

Leaving behind them, the famine,

The death and starvation.

They crossed the sea on coffin ships

And stepped onto Scotland’s shore,

In their Gaelic tongue, they said a prayer,

For Ireland, they would see no more.

They sought refuge and they settled

Within Glasgow’s Irish community,

Making their home in the Garngad and Calton,

In the Gorbals and the district of Paisley.

Despised and loathed by the native Scots

For their heritage, culture and faith,

How our ancestors resisted the sectarian taunts,

That we still face today.

And since the day Brother Walfrid formed

Glasgow’s Irish team,

Ireland’s immigrants have traveled forth

To watch the Bhoys in green.

Celtic Park became a shrine,

The Holy Ground in song and verse,

Were our ancestors watched Neil McCallum

Score Celtic’s first goal against the ‘Gers.

But how the Irish were never accepted

And faced the verbal abuse and mockery,

As Victorian Scotland classed them Papist’,

Contagious, diseased and dirty.

Detested for their Catholic faith

That they brought to a Presbyterian land;

‘No Irish Need Apply’ was a common warning

For the poor, job seeking Irishman.

The jobs they sought and the jobs they found

Were in the mining pits or digging of canals,

To prevent their families from ‘Taking the Soup’

From the Protestant kitchen tables.

The labor was hard as they toiled the land,

Working for a minimum wage,

But when Saturday arrived, they were rich like Kings

When watching the Celtic play.

Through the years, through our mothers and fathers

We still hold onto our Irish roots,

The anti-Catholic taunts, the bigotry we have encountered

For wearing our green and white hoops.

And we will fly with pride, the flag of Ireland,

No matter what the Scottish media will say,

For our ancestors strength lies within our souls

Each and every day.

Daniel McDonagh 2006

Our Spiritual Home

Our spiritual home is Ireland

Were our fore-father’s had to abandon,

As the Irish Diaspora fled in droves

To escape poverty and the famine.

To the west coast of Scotland, they poorly arrived,

With hopes of finding a new paradise,

They were openly received with ignorance and hate,

Shown no help from the governing State.

But, Brother Walfrid, he opened his arms

And welcomed the displaced, into his heart,

The sons and daughters of a famished Erin,

Who found their heritage on the pitch at Celtic Park.

Daniel McDonagh

Glasgow’s Irish Team

My crime was being Irish

When I stepped onto Scotland’s shore,

My accent was mocked and ridiculed,

My culture and faith, arrogantly ignored.

I was an outcast on foreign soil,

Presbyterian pulpits condemned me to hell,

Jobs were few and I was victimized

For I could not read, write or spell.

Scotland was not the New World

That took me by the hand,

But offered poverty and starvation

That I had left back home in Ireland.

The grace of God shone in a man

Who enriched us with his dream,

As Brother Walfrid brought hope to the Irish,

With Celtic, Glasgow’s Irish team.

Daniel McDonagh 2006

Celtic Scarves and Ireland’s Flag

When Brother Walfrid came to Glasgow

And settled in the old east end,

He would build a team for the diocese

That sheltered Irish immigrants,

The players of Maley, McCallum and Kelly

Proudly wore the Celtic Cross,

The Glasgow Celtic name would flourish

As the sons of Erin would rejoice.

Cups and trophies and League titles

Would make their way to Paradise,

As Willie Maley nurtured the talents

Who played on the pitch beneath Parkhead’s sky,

Alec McNair and big Dan Doyle

And a Bhoy from Croy called Jimmy Quinn,

Would play on the pitch in a Celtic strip

And hear the sons of Erin celebrate a win.

From the Garngad, came James McGrory

Who gave to the Bhoys, his heart and soul,

And granddad, he would dance on the terracing

At the sight of every McGrory goal,

And Patsy Gallagher and Charlie Tully

Would terrorize defenders down the wing,

Their skills and courage in the green & white

Would make the sons of Erin sing.

And big Jock Stein, as player and manager

Led the Celts to silverware,

He saw the growth of Johnstone and Murdoch

As victory songs rang in the air,

Football was his pride and passion

That he taught to all his players,

And the Celtic shirt, the players would treasure

That each should be so proud to wear.

The faithful who embrace the Celtic

Take their place at Celtic Park,

They have watched McNeill, McStay and Larsson

Play for Celtic from their hearts,

Devoted to the name of Celtic

They proudly wear their emerald green,

They will travel far from every corner

To sing the songs of Brother Walfrid‘s team.

Celtic scarves and Ireland’s flag

Are on display at Celtic Park,

As every fan, will stand behind,

The men who play for Celtic.

Daniel McDonagh 2005

Irish Heart & Celtic Soul

My great-granddad came from Sligo

And in Glasgow, he found his dream,

Side by side with his fellow compatriots,

He embraced the Bhoys in green.

He traveled with the Brake Clubs

To watch the Glasgow Celtic play

And his Irish heart would swell with pride

When goals were scored from McGrory.

He would talk emotionally of the Celtic

When he would take his young son’s hand,

As they walked the miles to Celtic Park

He would sing for dear old Ireland.

For the green & white he would stand and cheer

As Celtic & Ireland reigned in his heart,

For this Sligo man had all his prayers answered

When watching the Bhoys win at Celtic Park.

Daniel McDonagh 2005

Amhán Na bhFiann

Ireland’s National Anthem

Has been branded a sectarian song,

As it’s sang on Parkhead’s terracing

By Celtic’s faithful sons,

Can we celebrate at Celtic Park

The heritage of our ancestors?

Or are we to be silenced by the critics

For heralding our Irish culture?

Daniel McDonagh 2005

Our Lord and Saint Patrick

Gather all and listen

To a story that is going round,

Of how Our Lord and St .Patrick

Walked into Glasgow town.

They first stopped at the Croy Tavern

For a glass or two of ale,

As they strolled into old Glasgow

Crossing o’er the Campsie hills.

They sang all day and sang all night

Travelling on their way,

Visiting the blessed Garngad

Before heading up to the Gallowgate.

Our Lord, he stopped at Millburn Street

To see were James McGrory was born.

As both he and St. Patrick prayed to the memory

Of Garngad’s Irish son

They made their way to High street

And on down to Glasgow cross,

Passing were the ‘Smashing of the Van’

In 1921 had occurred.

They heard hymns of the Glasgow Celtic

Emanating from the Tolbooth bar,

Were Our Lord and St. Patrick

Entered the lounge, for a couple of jars.

They both blessed every Glaswegian

Who was wearing the green and white,

While passing the Barra’s that stood empty

On a rainy Wednesday night.

While travelling up to Parkhead

Sharing a bottle of Buckfast wine,

They would be sure to tell Artur Boruc,

That blessing yourself is not a crime

Once inside Paradise,

They took their seats in the Jock Stein Stand,

And sitting behind them were the martyrs;

James Connolly, Che & Bobby Sands.

Rebel songs they loudly sang,

Songs that Parkhead no longer hears,

As Our Lord, he whispered to St. Patrick,

I wish wee Johnny Doyle was here.

Daniel McDonagh 2008

Garngad’s Irish Bhoy

There was great excitement,

Filled with pleasure and joy,

Songs were sung in harmony

Of Garngad’s Irish Bhoy.

Children ran through the street

Relating the news, expanding the story.

How Celtic won again at Parkhead,

From goal after goal from James McGrory.

A football pitch would be outlined

On a cobblestone street,

Were the sons of Irish immigrants

Played with the poorest of shoes on their feet.

They played until darkness fell,

Or when the rain tore at their souls.

But they told their mothers, told their fathers,

How they scored a James McGrory goal

Daniel McDonagh 2008

James McGrory

From the garden of God

From Ireland’s 33rd county

From the Garngad to Celtic

Came James Edward McGrory.

Daniel McDonagh 2004

The Royston Road

To the Royston Road, we made our way,

To kick our heels and rejoice,

Were children of all ages wore the green,

And voices sang songs of the Bhoys.

The League was won, and to celebrate

We drank a dozen cans of lager,

And from Parkhead to the Royston Road

Some young men, they did stagger.

To demonstrate the Celtic way

We wore our hoops of green & white,

As the street party on the Royston Road

Lasted into the wee hours of the night.

The Royston Road was crowned that day

The capital of old Ireland,

As we drank with joy and toasted the Bhoys,

The day Celtic became League Champions.

Daniel McDonagh 2005

The Garden of God

From Donegal and from Sligo,

From Kerry and from County Cork,

Irish men and Irish women

Made the Garngad, the Garden of God.

Where the flag of Ireland flourishes

Where the Celtic are prayed to at night,

Children of the Garngad,

Are born wearing, the green & white.

With hymns of Ireland echoing

Of heroes who are long gone,

It is in the Garden of God, were our children are raised

On Celtic and Irish songs.

Daniel McDonagh 2006

Brother Walfrid Stands by Parkhead’s Gates

The Celtic songs filled heaven’s sky

And we marched along the Gallowgate

Joined by comrades, brothers and sisters,

As Brother Walfrid stood by Parkhead’s gates.

The Celtic passion is such devotion,

Heritage, culture and our faith,

Our father’s father bore the tradition,

While Brother Walfrid stood by Parkhead’s gates.

In the Garngad, from the parish of Saint.Roch’s,

Ireland’s sons and daughters would pray,

From the Royston Road, we would find our spiritual home

As Brother Walfrid’s soul welcomed us through Parkhead’s gates.

Our Irish inheritance we will cradle,

With the Glasgow Celtic, we will celebrate,

On the Holy Ground will play heroes & legends,

Blessed by Brother Walfrid who stands by Parkhead’s gates.

The green and white drapes over our heart

As we are educated on the Celtic way,

And as we gather within Celtic Park,

Brother Walfrid stands by Parkhead’s gates.

Daniel McDonagh 2005

Ireland’s 33rd County (The Garden of God)

On the Royston Road we sang,

Celebrated through the night,

And with the spirit of Mick McLaughlin

We toasted Celtic’s win up at Tannadice.

The old Garngad praised the name of Celtic

And of every man who wore the green,

For the news had came through from Pittodrie

That the Rangers had lost to Aberdeen.

By the steps of Saint Roch’s chapel

The spirits of Mick McLaughlin and Jimmy McGrory

Watched with joy at how the Glasgow Irish

Reveled in Celtic’s championship victory.

The garden of God, Ireland’s 33rd county,

Drank dry every Garngad pub,

And in harmony the Glasgow Irish sang

Of Brother Walfrid’s, Celtic Football Club.

Daniel McDonagh 2008