Andrew Kerins (18 May 1840 – 17 April 1915), known by his religious name Brother Walfrid, was an Irish Marist Brother and the 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. He studied teaching and in 1864 joined The Marist Brothers Teaching Order. He moved to Scotland in the 1870s and taught at St. Marys School and the Sacred Heart 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. 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 and Bow. 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.
Read more about Brother Walfrid: Commemoration
Famous quotes containing the word brother:
“In the moment when you make the least petition to God, though it be but a silent wish that he may approve you, or add one moment to your life,—do you not, in the very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your thought? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, and Jesus is no more present to your mind than your brother or your child.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)