Paddy McMenamin is an Irish writer, former teacher, and Celtic supporter whose books connect personal history with the communities of Belfast, Donegal, and Galway. He grew up in Turf Lodge in west Belfast and was a member of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles. His imprisonment in Long Kesh during the 1970s later became the subject of both autobiographical writing and a collection of prison journals.
After leaving Belfast, McMenamin spent years working in a Donegal factory and also worked in Germany. He returned to education as a mature student around the age of fifty, studying English and history before qualifying as a teacher. His writing includes a column for the Tirconaill Tribune and contributions to Celtic supporter publications. His books range from the memoir From Armed Struggle to Academia to a study of Celtic’s connections with Ireland and Scotland.
Paddy McMenamin Books
| Book | Year | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Celtic | 2026 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
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McMenamin has lived in the Galway area since 2005. His prison writings acquired a second public life through the University of Galway Library, which preserved and digitized journals produced in Long Kesh between 1974 and 1976. The collection includes poetry, political discussion, history, and Irish-language material. Its digital launch in 2025 accompanied the publication of his book about the journals, bringing private documents into a research archive.
Soccer Books
Celtic: You're in My Heart, You're in My Soul: Announced for 2027, this book explores the connections between Celtic, Ireland, and Scotland through McMenamin’s experiences as a supporter. Decades of journeys between Donegal and Glasgow accompany an account of the club’s origins and its place in Irish migrant life. Personal memories connect matches and friendships with a wider history of poverty, charity, discrimination, and attachment to a shared cultural identity.
The narrative spans nearly sixty years of following the club. Celtic’s charitable beginnings and the role of Brother Walfrid provide a historical starting point, while McMenamin’s travel and relationships show how that inheritance is experienced by later supporters. Glasgow and Donegal remain connected through repeated visits, community ties, and the routines of attending matches. The book treats support as a social history carried between places as well as an attachment to a team.
Other Books
From Armed Struggle to Academia: McMenamin recounts a life that took him from west Belfast and imprisonment during the Troubles to factory work, mature education, and teaching. The memoir follows changes in his circumstances and outlook through employment, family relationships, illness, and periods of uncertainty. Journeys to watch Celtic form a recurring part of an account centered on personal experience and the difficult transition between markedly different stages of life. Published in 2022.
Voices from Inside: The Hidden Journals of Long Kesh: McMenamin presents journals made by prisoners in Long Kesh during the 1970s, placing them within the circumstances of their creation and preservation. Articles, poems, photographs, and other material record daily concerns and efforts to maintain an intellectual life behind the wire. The collection offers a view of imprisonment through documents that families kept and that later became part of a university archive. Published in 2025.
McMenamin contributed to several prison publications and edited An Fuascailteoir. The surviving journals include material intended for education and debate as well as accounts of confinement. Family members helped preserve documents that had been taken out of the prison; their later donation allowed the university to make them available for historical study. The archive records the publications as sources from a particular community and period.