Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I was at Liverpool, I asked about Van Dijk when he was at Groningen and then at Celtic. But I was told he wouldn't be for us at the time. Van Dijk could have jumped from Celtic to a Liverpool.
I have great memories of playing in the Champions League at Celtic Park. That was something I will never forget, and of course we won a championship and that's something no-one can take away from me.
If we had written Tristan in the true vernacular the audience would have been very small. It wouldn't have even been Shakespearean. It would have been so Celtic you wouldn't understand what was going on.
I would definitely return to Austria. They were all good experiences for me, but definitely Austria because there were some ancient Celtic, sacred sites that were in the forest that were quite beautiful.
I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves.
The first thing I remember was going up to Celtic Park to watch Celtic, feeling the full effect of the stadium. When you see the players on the park for the first time, you get sucked in and it's like a dream.
I've tried to maintain a certain bit of originality in that I don't want to necessarily sing like a soulful gospel singer or like an ethereal Celtic singer - I never wanted to be pulled into any one direction.
My decision was that after nearly three years at Celtic - with everything we'd achieved and the success we'd had on the pitch, the improvements off the pitch - then it was time to move on to my next challenge.
I got the call, 'Celtic want you.' And I knew Celtic were a top, top team. I thought it would be much easier than it was. It was quicker than I thought. When you got the ball, there was always a defender at you.
I - and there are hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who felt on this subject as I do - have always liked my Celtic countrymen and disliked the English nation; it is a national trait of character, and I cannot help it.
It was important for me, when I left a club like Liverpool, to one, have a breather, but then my next job, I needed pressure. And there's a pressure at Celtic. It's a huge club; there's an expectancy to win every game.
From the perspective of what happened with Celtic people might argue that I didn't have the experience for another big job but I don't think my experience with Celtic explains why I couldn't get a job in the fourth division.
If I was making the decision normally, with my heart, I'd never leave Celtic. My life was great. I loved the city. I loved the people. I loved the club. I had a wonderful life. If you think of all those things, you'd never move.
I was born in the island of Ireland. I have Irish traits in me - we don't all have the traits of what came from Scotland, there is the celtic factor... and I am an Irishman because you cannot be an Ulsterman without being an Irishman.
When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland.
Few in the Nineties would have ventured to prophesy that the remote dim singer of the Celtic Twilight would, in a new age, become the leading poet of the English-speaking world. None have disputed the claim of William Butler Yeats to that title.
Banjos are used in Celtic, English folk music and obviously American music. But not that much in pop music. But it's more versatile than people realise it to be. It's a beautiful instrument, very rhythmic and melodic. You can do anything with it.
It's funny: when I was a kid, my mom would reorganize the record collection all the time. She'd have classical, she'd have Celtic, she'd have rock and roll, and then she'd have female singers. And I don't like it that female singers are their own genre.
When I started going to see Celtic, it was just before Henrik Larsson signed. We used to try to skip into the games. You would stand outside, waiting for someone who had a spare ticket and then give him the wee puppy eyes in the hope he'd give it to you!
My mom was a folk singer and Celtic harpist. My dad was in a barbershop quartet and my great grandma was an opera singer. As I grew up, I discovered pop music and Top 40 radio, but it was in the '90s, so music was very different then - it was really lyrical.
And it's very strange, but I think there is something very common - not only in Celtic music - but there is a factor or element in Celtic music that is similar in music that we find in Japan, the United States, Europe, and even China and other Asian countries.
Everybody in my family were great storytellers. My dad and his brothers would just go on and on; they could tell amazing stories. I think it was something to do with the Celtic, oral storytelling tradition. People very much had that propensity towards telling tales.
When I first discovered for myself the Celtic Twilight and read the earlier poems of Yeats and others, all was entirely incomprehensible to me. I groped through a mist of blurred meanings, stumbled through lines in which every accent seemed to be in the wrong place.
I'm quite British; I've got big, flat feet, and I can't wear heels. I've got very, very pale Celtic skin, so my legs are always a frightening blue color. So when you take out clothes that reveal your legs, shoes that have any kind of heel, no shop will actually take my money.
The only thing that Celtic doesn't have is the propaganda, which is the Premier League. In every other aspect of football, Celtic is a huge club: fan base, stadium and history. They have a fantastic history. What it doesn't have is the opportunity to play in the Premier League.
If you're let go from Celtic, the club you support, and go to Queen's Park, people think it's a disaster. I don't think I cried, but I was very upset. As a young boy, your dream has been taken away. But I had good people around me, and it was probably the best thing that happened.
Celtic are the club I supported as a boy, and I loved every moment I was there. For me to leave there, I knew I was going to have to not just come to a club, but I had to come to a special club that was going to allow me to connect with the players and hopefully the supporters, too.
In my mind, I would always be a Celtic. I was very thankful and humbled that the Hornets saw fit to allow me to play a couple more years, but the only time I thought of myself as a Charlotte Hornet was game time. Other than that, when the jersey came off, I still felt like I was a Celtic.
I didn't really adapt to Scottish football well, but I enjoyed my time there. The physical nature and the pace of the game was a big thing, and many of the teams defended really deep against Celtic so there was not so much space to run in behind. That's a big part of my game, so that was one thing as well.
When I was little I got to dribble the ball around while my older brother Paul, who played for a long time for Kilmarnock, my dad and my uncle Jimmy - who was at Celtic as a kid and played with Morton and Cambridge City - kicked it hard and I got punted out the way. But gradually I got allowed into the game.
Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us, starting with the Irish Celtic national revival. I never believed in 'Old Ireland.' It has been made all of kitsch by the diaspora, looking back and deciding what Ireland is. Yes, it is green. Yes, it is friendly. I can't think of anything else for definite.
