Kerins, Andrew (Brother Walfrid) (1840–1915), Marist brother and founder of Glasgow Celtic football club, was born 18 May 1840 at Ballymote, Co. Sligo, son of John Kerins, farmer, and Elizabeth Kerins (née Finn). Nothing is known of his life until he joined the Sligo Marist Brothers in 1864. Taking the name ‘Brother Walfrid’ from an eighth-century Italian who renounced trade to found a monastery, he was ordered to Scotland at an unknown date. A teacher first at St Mary's school, in Glasgow's Calton district, he was appointed headmaster of St Andrew's school, Bridgeton, where he became painfully aware of the absenteeism caused by poverty and hunger. As brother superior of the Marist teaching order in Glasgow, in 1884 he arranged for the local society of St Vincent de Paul to open premises in Bridgeton to serve penny dinners to his pupils.
Conscious of the increasing popularity of football among the urban working classes, he staged charity matches to benefit his charges and formed his own youth team, Columba. He attended the February 1887 reception at Calton's St Mary's hall for Hibernian of Edinburgh, winners of the Scottish cup final. This inspired him to organise an April 1887 charity match between Clyde and Dundee Harps in aid of the poor children's dinner table at the Sacred Heart school, Bridgeton. By early autumn 1887 he had determined to organise a football team that would benefit local charities. He named it Celtic Football and Athletic Club at its formal institution on 6 November 1887 at St Mary's Hall. John Glass, a Glasgow builder, chaired the meeting and together they secured the club's ground east of Janefield cemetery in November 1887. Celtic played their first home match, in white shirts with green collars and a Celtic cross in red and green on the right breast, on 28 May 1888 before 2,000 people, beating Glasgow Rangers 5–2. Kerins used his formidable organisational skills to promote Celtic to the wider public, and even recruited Archbishop Charles Eyre of Glasgow to the club's subscription list.
Transferred to London by his order in 1892, he continued to teach. He met with Celtic once more in London in 1911 as the club returned from a European tour. His health declined soon after, and he retired to the Marist House in Dumfries, where he died after long illness in April 1915. The Ballymote Brother Walfrid Kerins community park is named after him.