Northern Irish Players And Celtic

+1

...and Charlie Tully. Came from a Catholic background. But Peacock especially, as he captained both Celtic and NI. He came from a prod background, but the two of them worked so well as a combination for both club and country.

Anton Rogan is another to be noted, from the 80s & early 90's.

 

Aye, takes all sorts, including eejits.

Personal experience is that those in the Republic are much less engaged in this sort of nonsense as they are insulated from it.

 

I think these guys are put through the footballing system at an early age before they have given a huge amount of thought to how their football reflects their politics or identity.

Heck James McClean even represented NI in the underage levels.

 

I don’t understand how any Celtic fan wouldn’t already have known this? Jesus Christ * need to start educating themselves a bit.

 

And * the thread title as well.

 

I'm not a Celtic fan, I'm fond of them, collect some of the shirts etc cause I'm Irish but I support the ROI, I don't really pay as much attention to NI which is why I asked. Anyway, even if I was a full-on Celtic fan, I'd have to have started somewhere, if I were a total newbie so what? So were you once, and so was every other fan. In fact, you say every fan should already know this stuff right? Well read the topic, I'm not the only 1 that "needs educating".... Playing for NI when they have such an Irish background just seems like a contradiction to me, but then they likely started with NI when they were youths like has bin said, and not everybody takes the politics that seriously anyway I guess

 

I would guess that the majority of of those with a nationalist background that end up playing for NI are generally ones that never had the option to play for ROI as they were never given a call up.

I think pretty much all of the Northern born players that ended up playing for ROI (in recent years certainly) like Duffy, McClean, Marc Wilson, Darren Gibson etc all began in the NI programme before being invited to play for ROI.

 

I suppose as well as them not having the option to play for the ROI when they got the NI call up, it's not fair to assume they'd have accepted the ROI over NI anyway, first team international football might have been the deciding factor in where they went

 

i think there is a lot of sporting people in the north that put their sport before politics .i dont know but maybe there a lot of decent people in the ni football set up that its doesnt seem that big a deal for a player to represent them .i wonder about micheal oneill managing them too ,martin o neill a former player also

 

If you need a real world explanation as to why, there are two ex Celtic players to examine.

One was Gary Hooper; who could've played for a number of international outfits and ultimately destroyed his own career chasing an England shirt.

The other is Matt O'Reilly; born and raised in England, even represented for England in his youth, now a full Danish international and it increased his value markedly.

Its a career. Not a calling. Despite the * comes out of players mouths.

Treat it like an exercise in patriotism and you'll Gary Hooper yourself.

Deco played for Portugal. Half the France teams these days we'rent even born there.

Look at ROI, i mind being a kid and being SHOCKED at the accents of Jackies Ireland side; it was literally an England B team ffs.

Its a career. And a short one at that.

 

Lol Gary Hooper yourself! I think you're spot on there. Kevin Nolan was another that could've played for ROI or NI but never did make himself available to them, presumably cause he wanted to play for England. In the case of the players this thread is asking about though, Celtic, the ROI and NI all have deep political pasts, some take that into account (McClean) but most probably don't. I guess I just wanted to attempt to decipher how seriously Lennon/Hazard take their Irishness, do we all agree that if the ROI had come along first and both players believed they could break into the team, they'd have played for the ROI instead? I wonder what McClean would've done had the ROI not been interested in him? Keep playing for NI or just quit and hope the ROI change their mind?!

 

Pretty sure Hooper was eligible only for England. Scotland did a search for the birthplace of his grandad who grew up in Scotland but turned out he was born in England.

 

Same sort of thing as when the papers where touting Agathe for Scotland as he'd lived here a while!

 

You all forgot the legend Michael Duffy

 

Paddy mccourt became Pat mccourt when playing for the ocuppied 6