An official thank you on the part of Alan Hilliard, of the Irish Episcopal Commission for emigrants, was expressed during the official lunch of the Celtic Club fans association, in Dublin on 9 July. The expression of gratitude came in response to a charitable donation made by the association to the SIA campaign, a fund designed for the support of needy Irish emigrants abroad. The fund, founded in February this year thanks above all to the drive of Bishop Seamus Hegarty of Derry, has already raised some 300,000 euros. “I wish to express my warmest thanks to your association said Hilliard ; thank you for not having forgotten this cause, thank you for remaining steadfast in your faith”. “One of the greatest crimes continued Alan Hilliard is forgetfulness; we forget the hard work of past generations that gave us great football and sporting clubs and great societies. I see in you the revival of the same spirit that inspired the founder of Celtic, Marianist Father Walfrid Kerins”. Father Kerins, in fact, decided to set up the Celtic team mainly to raise funds for poor children, at a time when Irish immigrants in Glasgow, in Scotland, were suffering dreadfully from famine. Kerins, born in Ballymote, in county Sligo in 1840, came to Scotland at the end of the 19th century, when the game of football was beginning to excite the passion of workers and the poorer classes. Kerins did not remain insensible to this phenomenon that was increasingly gaining a hold over the working-class and following in the footsteps of the Edinburgh Irish Catholic Club decided that the time was ripe for Glasgow too to set up its own football team. The Celtic Football and Athletic Club was founded on 6 November 1887, thanks to the finance provided by philanthropists sympathetic to the Catholic cause and to groups of volunteers who, in a remarkably short space of time, created a football pitch with stands for the spectators. Father Walfrid made a great contribution to the education and support of poorer children in the East End of the city, organizing a subscription fund for the support of the club and the distribution of free meals to the very young players.
