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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Wee bit long, but best I could find:
Bhoys' was a self-reference and nickname common among Irish emigrants on themselves.
The extra letter was an attempt to capture the Irish accent, as well as probably signifying a sense of their own cultural identity. It is thought the extra letter in 'boys' was added to phonetically represent the Irish pronunciation of the word, with a soft inflection of the 'h'.
The additional 'h' is believed to originated following the trend by people during the Victorian era who added a 'h' to titles (e.g. place names etc) which helped to make them appear/read as Gaelic.
The 'Bhoys' term is thought to have been generated in New York (USA) during the 19th Century and passed back over the Atlantic (see link). 'Bhoy' is believed to have originated in New York in around the 1840s, and is from the Irish pronunciation of boy, and relates to rowdy working class folk. Note, the female version was not a 'Ghirl', but a 'Ghal'.
Promotional stuff on Celtic goods from the earliest days even refer to 'The Bould Bhoys', the postcard below from the turn of the 20th century which refers to the Celtic team of the time as 'The Bould Bhoys' is currently believed to be the oldest written Celtic reference.
So the term and name stuck, and it became the de facto nickname for Celtic, the fans and all related groups.
If anything, the 'Bhoys' is an endearing reference for the Celtic support which easily helps to reflect the cultural ties with the club's heritage in a simple way.
According to Alan Lugton who wrote "The Making of Hibernian [FC]", the term 'The Bhoys' was a nickname that was even used to refer to Hibs in their early days:
"At the time of their founding, Hibernian had various nicknames such as “representatives of the Emerald Isle” or “the Bhoys”, but the most popular nicknames were “the Green Jerseys” and the Irishmen."
Appears that in the 19th Century, it possibly was used to refer to any 'Irish' football side, for example in the Motherwell Times (Saturday 01 October 1892) it has local football side Carfin Shamrocks known as the 'Bhoys'.
Ridiculously, Sevco supporters add a 'h' to terms in a pejorative way to describe Celtic fans (e.g. 'mhanks'), but then again it reflects the impact of the Irish aspect to the Celtic FC culture.
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Rubbish, its because they had so many "h's" left over when playing scrabble they stuck in some silent h spots. They kept playing words like tis or tat and finding tings really hard to win when you had 4 point h's to score against you at te end of te game.  |
