Brother Walfrid (18 May 1840 - 17 April 1915) is the religious name of Andrew Kerins, an Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 Marist Brother and founder of Celtic Football Club.

Walfrid was born of John Kerins and Elizabeth Flynn in Ballymote, a village in south County Sligo in north west Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

. He studied teaching and in 1864 joined The Marist Brothers Teaching Order. He moved to Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 in the 1870s and taught at St. Marys School and the Sacred Heart

Sacred Heart

The Sacred Heart is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus' physical heart as the representation of His divine love for Humanity....

 School where he was appointed headmaster in 1874. He also helped found St. Joseph's College, Dumfries.

In 1888, he founded The Celtic Football Club as a means of raising funds for the poor and deprived in the east end of Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

. In 1893 Walfrid was sent by his religious order to London's East End. Here he continued his work, organizing football matches for and showing great kindness to the barefoot children in the districts of Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...

 and Bow

Bow, London

Bow is an area of London, England, United Kingdom in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a built-up, mostly residential district located east of Charing Cross, and is a part of the East End.-Bridges at Bowe:...

. The charity established by Walfrid was named The Poor Children's Dinner Table.

He died on 17 April 1915, leaving a surviving brother, Bernard, in Cloghboley, County Sligo. Walfrid is buried in the Mount St. Michael Cemetery in Dumfries

Dumfries

Dumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth. Dumfries was the county town of the former county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South...

.

Commemoration

A commemorative sculpture of Walfrid was erected outside Celtic Park

Celtic Park

Celtic Park is a football stadium in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, which is the home ground of Celtic FC. Celtic Park, an all-seater stadium with a capacity of 60,832, is the largest football stadium in Scotland and the sixth-largest stadium in the United Kingdom, after Murrayfield, Old Trafford,...

 on 5 November 2005.
The 3.2 metre high sculpture by Kate Robinson was cast in bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

 and its pedestal carved from granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

. The statue cost ₤30,000 which was funded entirely by donations organised by the Brother Walfrid Committee, including ₤5,000 from then chairman of the club, Brian Quinn

Brian Quinn

Brian Quinn, CBE is a Scottish economist and former football club chairman. He is an honorary Professor of economics at Glasgow University. He is best known for his spell as the Chairman of the Celtic Plc board.-Early life:...

.. The veil for the unveiling ceremony was made by workshops in fourteen schools and community centres throughout Glasgow. Funded by Sense Over Sectarianism, artists worked with young people to create images of footballers and football strips which were digitally printed onto the veil itself. The unveiling was performed by former assistant manager and player Sean Fallon, himself a native of Sligo. The ceremony was attended by the Archbishop of Glasgow

Archbishop of Glasgow

The Bishop of Glasgow, from 1492 Archbishop of Glasgow, was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Glasgow and then, as Archbishop of Glasgow, the Archdiocese of Glasgow...

, the Most Reverend Mario Conti

Mario Joseph Conti

Mario Joseph Conti is the current Catholic Archbishop of the Metropolitan see of Glasgow, Scotland.-Life:Mario Joseph Conti was born on 20 March 1934, in Elgin, Moray, son of Louis Joseph Conti and Josephine Quintilia Conti...

 who blessed the statue, several thousand fans and former Celtic and Rangers

Rangers F.C.

Rangers Football Club are an association football club based in Glasgow, Scotland, who play in the Scottish Premier League. The club are nicknamed the Gers, Teddy Bears and the Light Blues, and the fans are known to each other as bluenoses...

 captains and managers Billy McNeil and John Greig

John Greig

John Greig MBE is a Scottish former professional football player who, despite his boyhood allegiance to hometown team Heart of Midlothian, spent his entire career in Glasgow with Rangers as a player, manager and director.Greig was voted "The Greatest Ever Ranger" in 1999 by the Rangers supporters...

.

New music for the ceremony called Walfrid at the Gates of Paradise was composed by relative James MacMillan

James MacMillan (musician)

James MacMillan CBE is a Scottish classical composer and conductor.-Early life:MacMillan was born at Kilwinning, in North Ayrshire, but lived in the East Ayrshire town of Cumnock until 1977....

. Archbishop Conti presented club officials with a Celtic cross from the church where Celtic were established, Saint Mary's

Saint Mary's, Calton

Saint Mary's is a Catholic church in Calton, Glasgow, Scotland. It is the second oldest church in the Archdiocese of Glasgow and acted as the Pro-Cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow from 14 August 2009 to April 2011, during the restoration of St Andrew's Cathedral...

, Calton

Calton

Calton may refer to:Places:*Calton, Argyll and Bute, Scotland*Calton, Glasgow, Scotland*Calton, North Yorkshire, England*Calton, Ontario, Canada*Calton, Staffordshire, England*Calton Hill, ScotlandPeople:*Patsy Calton, British politician...

 the second oldest church in the Archdiocese of Glasgow

Archdiocese of Glasgow

The Archdiocese of Glasgow was one of the thirteen dioceses of the Scottish church. It was the second largest diocese in the Kingdom of Scotland, including Clydesdale, Teviotdale, parts of Tweeddale, Liddesdale, Annandale, Nithsdale, Cunninghame, Kyle, and Strathgryfe, as well as Lennox Carrick...

. After the ceremony, the Celtic Charity Fund presented a cheque of ₤5,000 for St Mary's, to help the restoration fund for the church and to recognise the important link between club and community.

A further sculpture, a bust of Brother Walfrid, commemorating his links with his home town of Ballymote, was unveiled in the public park there in 2005.

See also

• Marist Brothers
  Marist Brothers
  The Marist Brothers, or Little Brothers of Mary, are a Catholic religious order of brothers and affiliated lay people. The order was founded in France, at La Valla-en-Gier near Lyon in 1817 by Saint Marcellin Champagnat, a young French priest of the Society of Mary...
  
  
• History of Celtic F.C.
  History of Celtic F.C.
  Celtic Football Club has a long and illustrious history, having always competed in the highest level of football in Scotland, currently the Scottish Premier League. The club was constituted in 1887, and played its first game in 1888. Celtic play home games at Celtic Park, which is the largest...