Sport and the contestation of ethnic identity: Football and Irishness in Scotland

Abstract

The greatest single immigrant group in Scotland derives from the island of Ireland. During the years of the Great Irish Famine in the mid-nineteenth century until the First Word War, several hundred thousand Irish migrated to Scotland. Traditionally, this migrant community has been largely ignored in academic, popular and public literature and representations. It is primarily through the sport of soccer that this group's distinctiveness and identities are manifest in Scotland. However, the existence and the successes of Celtic, a football club founded and supported by the Irish Catholic immigrant community, highlights not only this marginalisation but the prejudice perceived and experienced by the Irish diaspora in Scotland. This paper highlights the role and significance of the Scottish print media in reflecting, creating, sustaining and disseminating this prejudice.