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Hibernian Football Club

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The football team that was created by the Irish lives on today. The Grassmarket and St Patrick’s Church in the nearby Cowgate has strong links with the creation of the club.
At the heart of Edinburgh’s rich Irish heritage and community is Hibernian football club. Many British teams around the late 19th century were formed around a Church or had at least had some religious connection. Hibs without doubt have connection stronger than most. St Patrick’s Catholic Church in the Cowgate was the place of worship for Edinburgh’s impoverished Irish Catholic community and it’s still packed out today with the ancestors of the Irish who lived and worked in the centre of the city. One of the reason’s this Church is so fondly remembered today is because it was the birthplace of Scotland’s first Irish football club back in 1875. Irish born Cannon Edward Joseph Hannan and Michael Whelahan were the key founders of the club. They set about building a squad that would shape the hopes and dreams of the Irish community, mobilising them physically and spiritually.
The team had to be members of the Catholic Young Men’s Society in order to give a sense of dedicated unity to the club. At the centre of the team’s progression was a strong spirit of Christian living, anyone who didn’t adhere to this practice was unable to play for the club. Soon Hibs were being followed by Irish emigrants throughout Scotland. The team undoubtedly suffered sectarian problems in their formative years due to their strong Irish image, sometimes trouble broke out at matches and the club was initially shunned by the Scottish Football Association on the grounds that Hibs were Irish. Hibernian was Latin for Irishman and the club’s slogan was Erin Go Bragh (Ireland Forever). The charity football team raised money for the impoverished Irish throughout Scotland and were the inspiration for Glasgow Celtic and Dundee United.


James Connolly
He was a leader and an organiser in one of Europe’s biggest social and national revolutions and is without doubt one of the greatest thinkers of the last century.
At the formation of Hibernian football club in St Mary’s Street Halls was James Connolly. Hibernian historian Alan Lugton has documented Connolly’s lifelong and fanatical support for the club. He writes: “As a twelve year old barefoot street urchin James Connolly would carry the player’s kits down to Easter Road for them which ensured him of a sixpence and free admission to the match, and he carried out hundreds of odd jobs at the ground”.
Connolly was born in the Cowgate on the 5th June 1868; his parents had fled starvation in Ireland sometime in the 1850s. After his stint at Easter Road he worked as a printer’s devil at the Edinburgh Evening News and by 14 he had joined the Royal Scots after giving a false age. Connolly’s battalion was shipped to his spiritual home of Ireland and during that time he became engaged to an Irish Protestant girl who he married on his return to Scotland seven years later. After marrying in Perth, Connolly returned to Little Ireland in Edinburgh and lived in the West Port area, just off the Grassmarket where he started a family of his own. After settling back in Edinburgh Connolly became involved in politics and socialism, he worked for the Edinburgh Corporation, raised money for Hibs who were fighting survival and worked as the political organiser for the Dublin Socialist Club. At 27 Connolly left for America bringing attention to the rights of the American working class through the trade unions movement. He returned to Edinburgh many times during this period to contribute the Edinburgh’s social and political struggles, these trips home also gave him the chance to catch up with his cherished Hibernian. Connolly eventually returned to Ireland and became a top official with the Irish Transport and General Workers Union and he also lead the Great Irish Labour War in 1913. Most famously James Connolly was one the leaders of the Easter Uprising in 1916, after being shot on the steps of the G.P.O he was taken to Kilmainham Jail where he was executed by a firing squad. Connolly led a remarkable life and improved the lives of others. His political thoughts, writings and actions changed the lives of countless people in Ireland, Scotland and America. The Edinburgh Irish community celebrate James Connolly’s memory once a year with a march through the Grassmarket every June.


Arthur Conan Doyle

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The world famous author of Sherlock Holmes grew up in Edinburgh’s Irish community. Doyle has been described as a truly British Celt. He was of Irish decent, Scots by birth and spent much of his life in England.
Doyle’s father Charles married his mother Mary Foley after meeting in Edinburgh. Their first son Arthur was born at Picardy Place on May 22nd 1859, virtually on the steps of the city’s massive Catholic Cathedral; St Mary’s. Today the famous Conan Doyle pub and a statue of Sherlock Holmes pay tribute to the writer in the same area. It was Doyle’s mother that instilled her son with the importance of his Irish heritage. She had traced her family line from the Plantagenists and was a fiercely proud woman. Doyle’s father was a civil servant, who lived in the shadow of his successful brothers. James Doyle wrote The Chronicles of England, Richard was a successful cover artist and Henry managed the National Gallery in Dublin. Charles Doyle fell into alcoholism and towards the end of his life ended up in a mental institution, blaming sectarian hatred for his downfall. It was Arthur’s uncles who paid for his education at Catholic boarding schools in England, which included a year abroad. Doyle fell away from Catholic living, but remained true to his roots when he succeeded on the powers that be to remove an anti-Catholic passage in the Coronation Oath and many of his early novels have strong Irish themes and issues such as The Green Flag and Touch and Go. Doyle’s biographer Owen Dudley Edwards reflects on the possibility that James Connolly and Arthur Conan Doyle might have bumped into each other at some point in early 20th century Edinburgh; perhaps at Church. One of Doyle’s early works Point of Contact reflects on this very happening — two great men existing at the same moment in time, without the slightest awareness of one another. Edwards writes: “The originator of the most famous figure in English fiction of the last hundred years certainly crossed the path of the most distinguished left wing political thinker of these Islands”. After Doyle’s Catholic education he returned to Edinburgh and studied medicine. He was a G.P in various locations but his heart remained in writing. For a time Doyle settled in Southsea and it was here he created his first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study In Scarlet. He made his home in England and developed an interest in spiritualism amid the massive success and fame that Sherlock Holmes brought. He remains one of Edinburgh’s finest literary sons.


Burke and Hare
Burke and Hare are two of the most well-known murderers in British history. They are still infamous in the West Port area of the city through the sleazy Burke and Hare strip bar that exists today.
Born in Newry, Ireland William Hare was an argumentative, brutal and extremely violent man. He worked as a farm labourer and settled in Scotland after working on the Union Canal along with many of his fellow Irishmen. His pairing with William Burke was an unlikely one, Burke from Tyrone was a more convivial character who had worked locally as servant and served as a batman in the Donegal Militia. After leaving a wife behind in Ireland and fathering seven children (only one survived), he also found work in Scotland on the Union Canal. Hare lived with his lover Margaret and helped her run a boarding house in the West Port area of the city; soon Burke was living in the boarding house with his lover Helen. When an elderly man fell ill and died in lodging house, Burke and Hare decided to sell the body to local anatomist Doctor Knox.
In the 19th century Edinburgh had a high demand for fresh bodies in its famous medical school. Grave robbing became popular among the underworld as reasonable prices would be paid for fresh corpse. The fresher the body — the higher the price and no questions asked. Burke and Hare didn’t have to look very far for their first victims; they started to murder anonymous members of society who would not be missed in over populated Little Ireland. Greed drove the pair to carelessness and they began to murder well-known characters. Mary Haldine was an aging prostitute who was lured to Hare’s lodging house to be murdered, when Mary’s daughter Peggy appeared looking for her mother; she also met her death. Burke and Hare’s biggest mistake was when they murdered a local entertainer, synonymous with the community called James Wilson. Daft Jamie, as he was known was immediately recognised in Dr Knox’s class room due to his deformed foot, although Knox denied it was Wilson. Eventually it was a fellow Irish lodger who discovered Burke and Hare’s final victim, Mary Docherty. When the police discovered the reason behind the disappearances they offered Hare a deal, who turned King’s evidence on Burke. He was found guilty on Christmas Day 1828 and later hanged while Hare was relocated to London. Other famous criminals from Little Ireland included Thomas Kelly and Henry O’Neill; the last highwaymen to be hung in Scotland.


William McGonagall

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Often described as the world’s worst poet, McGonagall has a new found relevance with fans all over the world and academics arguing his poetry was ahead of its time.
William Topaz McGonagall, born in 1825 was also brought up in Little Ireland of Irish parentage. He is most often associated with the city of Dundee where he worked with his fellow Irish in the jute mills and wrote his most famous poem The Tay Bridge Disaster. McGonagall didn’t start writing poetry until he was 52 years of age; his work was most commonly described as doggerel and in his day he was perceived to be the world’s worst poet. Time however, has been kind to the bard; his fame and influence has flourished with appreciation societies rivalling that of fellow poet Robert Burns. There are over 300 websites dedicated to the man, some even in Russian. Although in his day McGonagall was thick-skinned enough to ignore the majority of his criticism, his work seems to have taken on a new post-modern relevance. Academics in America have argued that his work was a forerunner for rap music while comedians such as Billy Connolly and Spike Milligan have also paid tribute. Milligan even played the bard the 1974 feature film The Great McGonagall, showing the poet’s life had no end of comedy value. McGonagall claimed a divine experience led him to write and he had an unflinching self belief in his work. Unfortunately he couldn’t ignore the verbal and physical attacks his work was attracting him in Dundee; he was nothing short of a laughing stock and the victim of countless practical jokes. He returned to Edinburgh a broken and poverty stricken man, the unappreciated poet died of a brain haemorrhage and was buried a pauper in the city’s famous Greyfriars Churchyard. In 1999 a memorial was erected in the Churchyard which proved to be a popular visitor attraction and he is now one of Scotland’s most famous poets. The sheer awfulness of McGonagall’s work and his serious intent (he actually believed he was up there with Shakespeare), brings countless people hilarious pleasure throughout the world.