Celtic Park and Football in Derry: A History

Pól O’Hare – April 2026

On Saturday 6th October 1894, a Derry Celtic player by the name of ‘Mr C. O’Neill’ kicked the first ball in an exhibition match, formally opening Celtic Park. It was the first football game held in the stadium and, 132 years later, Derry City host Shamrock Rovers in the home of Derry GAA. Below is the history of association football in Celtic Park and how senior football has progressed in the city.

Derry Celtic, whom the ground is named after, began life as St Columb’s Hall FC, before becoming St Columb’s Celtic FC. After merging with other clubs in the city in 1893, Derry Celtic was born. Wearing green and white, Derry Celtic was the primary club in the city until it’s defunction in 1913.

Derry Olympic was the first team from the city to play in the Irish League when they took part in the 1892-93 campaign, with the Brandywell as their home ground. That was Olympic’s only season in the Irish League, with the city’s clubs playing in regional competitions before Derry Celtic joined the Irish League in the 1900-01 season.

In the 1901-02 season, Derry saw two teams compete in the Irish League as Derry Celtic and St Columb’s Court took part – playing out of both Celtic Park and the Brandywell. Celtic Park played host to its first Irish League game in August 1901, as Belfast-based Ulster beat Derry Celtic 2-1. The latter part of the decade saw Celtic’s reserve team, Celtic Swifts, host Second Division Irish League games in Celtic Park too.

The late Frank Curran, in his book The Derry City F.C. Story 1928-1986, wrote of a match between Derry Celtic and Bohemians in December 1902. Hosted in Celtic Park, Curran noted how Derry Celtic was the only team from outside of Belfast or Dublin to compete in the Irish League that year. Their competitors that year were Distillery, Belfast Celtic, Cliftonville, Glentoran, Ulster, Linfield and Bohemians.

In 1912-13, Derry Celtic finished second bottom of the Irish League, meaning the club had to apply for readmission to the league – a readmission application which was denied. Derry Celtic then switched its allegiance to the GAA and, when the GAA proposed and received a loan of £30 to gain sole control of Celtic Park, the city found itself without a senior football club as Celtic Park became the home of Gaelic games in Derry. Gaelic Football and Hurling games began to be played in the stadium in the summer of 1913.

The 2-2 draw between Derry Celtic and Dublin’s Tritonville on Boxing Day in 1912 was the last Irish League game of the season and, as it turned out, would be the last ever Irish League fixture for either team. Derry Celtic and Tritonville both left the league prior to the 1913-14 season. It’s difficult to pinpoint if this was played in Celtic Park or the Brandywell, but a Derry Journal article from November 1912 wrote of an Irish League tie between Derry Celtic and Distillery in Celtic Park. That game was, more than likely, the last football game played in the stadium.

With sixteen years in the footballing wilderness behind them, the Derry faithful finally had a senior football club again when Derry City Football and Athletics Club was formed in May 1928. Norman McClure, whose father was a director at Derry Celtic, became the club’s first secretary. After failing to secure senior status in 1928, City were confirmed to replace Queen’s Island in May 1929. When the prospect of buying a ground was ruled out, the Council unanimously agreed to facilitate the club in using the Brandywell for the first time in August 1929.

7,600 people packed into the historic venue for Derry City’s first game, a tie at home to Glentoran which ended in a 2-1 defeat. Derry City’s first four home fixtures saw a combined attendance of 36,000 and the people of Derry had the football bug once again.

In the next century and beyond, the Lone Moor Road would see generation after generation of supporters sporting red and white, whether they would stop at Celtic Park or further down the hill at the Ryan McBride Brandywell.

The relationship between football and Celtic Park didn’t entirely end with Derry Celtic’s dissolvement in 1913, though. Derry City were reportedly offered to purchase the ground in 1933 but turned it down. A decade later, the Derry County Board bought Celtic Park and more than eighty years down the line, it remains the home of Derry GAA.

Eddie McAteer, who would go on to become an MP and leader of the Nationalist Party, went door-to-door with the first Secretary of the City GAA Board, Alphonsus Deane, and raised over £1000 in subscriptions and donations to purchase Celtic Park in 1943. Deane went on record saying that the ‘people of Derry bought Celtic Park’. That’s a story worth reading in itself.

With Derry City having temporary homes in Coleraine in the early 1970s and Buncrana more recently, there’s a beauty in the city’s primary football club returning to Celtic Park. 132 years after Derry Celtic kicked off the first football game in Celtic Park, and 114 years since the most recent, football returns to the county’s largest stadium.

It has held bumper crowds, civil rights marches, vigils and gatherings down the years and, even if it’s only for a couple of months, Celtic Park is ready to house Derry’s football club once again.