Celtic FC, Irish Folk Punk and the Terrace Songs

There’s a moment before every Celtic home game when the ground feels less like a football stadium and more like a pub with a very large back room. The songs start early, they’re sung with a conviction that has nothing to do with the match ahead, and they owe as much to Irish folk and its punk descendants as they do to football. The connection between Celtic FC fan culture and Irish folk punk isn’t a marketing exercise. It’s a shared vocabulary of exile, resistance and a good chorus.

The songs before the songs

Celtic’s songbook is rooted in Irish folk and rebel ballads, and that’s been true since the club’s founding in 1887 by Brother Walfrid in Glasgow’s East End. The club was set up to raise funds for poor Irish immigrant families, and the Irish identity stuck. The tunes that fill Celtic Park — “The Fields of Athenry”, “Grace”, “The Boys of the Old Brigade” — are folk songs first and football songs second. They were written for other contexts, often about hunger, emigration or political struggle, and they were adopted by supporters because they fit.

That’s the key thing about terrace singing: it’s rarely about the football. It’s about belonging. And Irish folk punk, when it arrived, understood that instinctively.

The Pogues and the punk-folk rupture

The Pogues are the hinge. Formed in King’s Cross, London, in 1982, they took Irish traditional music and ran it through punk’s amplification and attitude. Shane MacGowan’s lyrics were literate, wrecked and unsentimental, and the band’s rhythm section swung like a ceili band that had been locked in a rehearsal room with The Clash. Their 1985 album Rum Sodomy & the Lash is the one that matters most for this story: it’s folk music with the seams showing, and it made traditional songs feel urgent again.

For Celtic supporters, The Pogues were never a novelty. They were a band that treated Irish music as living, messy and contemporary — exactly how the songs are treated on the terraces. The Pogues didn’t invent the connection between Irish folk and working-class football crowds, but they gave it a soundtrack that could be played loud in a flat before a match. See the band’s Discogs entry for the run of records that built that reputation.

Dropkick Murphys and the stadium-sized chorus

Dropkick Murphys came out of Quincy, Massachusetts, in the mid-1990s, and they made the folk-punk formula bigger, louder and more explicitly tied to sport. Their version of “The Fields of Athenry” is the obvious example — a song that Celtic supporters already knew inside out, delivered with oi-punk guitars and a chorus built for thousands of voices. The band’s connection to Boston sports culture is well documented, and it’s not hard to see why the same approach lands in Glasgow.

What Dropkick Murphys did was legitimise the idea that a folk song could be a terrace anthem without losing its teeth. They’re not subtle, and they’re not trying to be. Their official site is at dropkickmurphys.com.

Flogging Molly and the pub-rock lineage

Flogging Molly, formed in Los Angeles in the late 1990s, sit slightly to the side of this. Their folk-punk is more pub-rock, more fiddle-and-accordion-forward, and less explicitly tied to football. But they belong in the conversation because they kept the Irish folk-punk circuit alive in the 2000s, playing the kind of venues where Celtic supporters and Irish music fans overlap. Their live album Alive Behind the Green Door captures the sweaty, singalong energy that translates directly to a packed pub before a game.

They’re also a reminder that this music isn’t exclusively Scottish or Irish. It’s diaspora music, made in Boston, Los Angeles and London, and that fits Celtic’s own identity as a club with supporters well beyond Glasgow.

What actually gets sung

Here’s where it gets interesting. The folk-punk bands didn’t write most of the songs you hear at Celtic Park. The terraces have their own canon, and it’s older than punk. But the punk bands amplified it, covered it and introduced it to people who might not have found it otherwise.

• “The Fields of Athenry” — written by Pete St John in the 1970s, adopted by Celtic supporters and later covered by Dropkick Murphys, among others.
• “Grace” — a folk ballad about Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford, sung at Celtic and at Irish rugby matches alike.
• “The Boys of the Old Brigade” — a rebel song that has been part of the Celtic songbook for decades.
• “The Broad Black Brimmer” — another staple, often sung a cappella or with a single drum.

What folk punk added was volume and a younger audience. It made these songs feel like they belonged to a punk gig as much as a football match, and that’s no small thing.

The awkward bits

It would be dishonest to pretend this is all singalong warmth. Celtic’s Irish identity has always been tangled up with politics, and some of the songs in the wider canon are contentious. The club itself has repeatedly asked supporters to leave certain songs behind, and the conversation about which songs belong in a modern stadium is ongoing. Folk punk’s rebel-ballad tradition doesn’t resolve that tension; it often leans into it.

There’s also a commercial dimension. Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly have built careers partly on the market for Irish-American identity, and that’s a different thing from being a Celtic supporter in Glasgow. The overlap is real, but it’s not identical. Worth keeping in mind when a band plays a stadium anthem and the crowd sings along without knowing the history.

Why it works

Strip it back and the connection is simple. Irish folk punk is music for people who like a chorus, a bit of grit and a sense of shared history. Celtic supporters are the same. The Pogues gave that instinct a punk edge, Dropkick Murphys gave it a stadium, and Flogging Molly kept the pubs open. The songs on the terraces are older than all of them, but they’ve been given a new set of lungs.

If you want to dig further, start with The Pogues’ Rum Sodomy & the Lash, then follow the thread to Dropkick Murphys’ The Gang’s All Here and Flogging Molly’s Drunken Lullabies. Then go to a match and listen to what’s sung before kick-off. That’s the real record.

FAQ

Why do Celtic fans sing Irish folk songs?

Celtic was founded in 1887 by Brother Walfrid in Glasgow's East End to raise funds for poor Irish immigrant families, and the Irish identity stuck. The songs are folk songs first and football songs second, adopted by supporters because they fit a sense of belonging.

Which folk punk bands are linked to Celtic FC fan culture?

The Pogues are the hinge, formed in London in 1982 and making traditional Irish music urgent again. Dropkick Murphys, from Quincy, Massachusetts, gave the formula a stadium-sized chorus, and Flogging Molly kept the pub-rock lineage alive.

What songs are sung at Celtic Park?

The terraces have their own canon, including 'The Fields of Athenry', 'Grace', 'The Boys of the Old Brigade' and 'The Broad Black Brimmer'. Folk punk bands amplified and covered these songs but didn't write most of them.

Are there controversies around Celtic's songbook?

Yes, Celtic's Irish identity is tangled up with politics, and some songs in the wider canon are contentious. The club has repeatedly asked supporters to leave certain songs behind, and the conversation about which songs belong in a modern stadium is ongoing.