Celtic Elaine’s passion for Education only matched by family and beloved football club

As soon as you hear the lilt, interspersed at regular intervals by outbursts of laughter, you know right away that Elaine Lingard is a Scots woman. 

A proud one at that, as you quickly ascertain. 

She has a passion for young people and their education, only matched by that of her family and the small matter of a certain soccer team, very well supported in Donegal - Celtic FC.  

Words become poetry as she recounts tales from life’s journey, that radiate a positive vibe, no matter the adversity.

With family roots that bound her and husband Matthew to both Donegal and Skibbereen in Cork, she rests easily with the mantle of a Celt as she moves smoothly between Scottish and Irish heritage. 

Her home and that of her family, for the best part of the last decade has been Bundoran.

A die-hard Celtic supporter since her childhood growing up in Paisley, about seven miles south west of Glasgow, family connections to Donegal and Cork, saw Croke Park as another destination, whether it was Cork in a hurling decider, or being in the presence of thousands of Tir Chonaill supporters as Michael Murphy raised ‘Sam’ in 2012. 

Her pedigree both as a Celt and Celtic fan is grounded in the fact that her late father, Frannie Patrick, disappeared from under the clutches and without the knowledge of her grandmother, high tailing it to a city called Lisbon, to see Celtic play at the Estádio Nacional in 1967 - at the tender age of 16 years. He passed away 18 months ago, but his memory lives strong through daughters and granddaughters.   

Elaine pictured above at her Emerald Education Centre said: 

“I’m originally from Paisley, just outside Glasgow, a cotton mill town, seven minutes away from the city centre, where there was a deep tradition of manual work. I was the first to veer into higher education, no one else had done that, so it was a big thing for me to move away from the town. 

“I studied in the south of England at Reading and did my teaching degree there. I qualified in the late eighties and have been involved with primary education in one way or another for the past three decades.”

An ambitious streak in those early days saw her rise to a Deputy Principalship within six years: “It was a bit of a shock at first because most teachers would have been 10 years in the system before moving to that grade, but I knew I had it in me.”

Elaine and family 

Work took her all over the south counties including Surrey, Berkshire, Hampshire and south Oxfordshire. 

Education standards in the UK were very high at the time, “and the schools I taught in went from one end of the spectrum to the other.”

Elaine’s teaching experience ran right through the socio-economic system as she explained:

“Some places were like inner city schools with a lot of deprivation and needy children and then there was another school that I was in, I was dealing with the sons and daughters of very well-off people up to the ages of 12 to 13.”

At this stage she met her husband Matthew and they got married with Freya arriving. 

She joined daughter Emma, from her previous marriage and “it was at this point that I decided I wanted to explore newer options in relation to Education and work”.

How she met Matthew is a story in itself and revolves around Celtic, of course. 

Elaine met him on a bus in Birmingham travelling to a Celtic match, as you do!

She had travelled up from Reading to Birmingham, where she worked and was also the branch Secretary of the Celtic Supporters Club in Reading.

“Football has always been a massive passion in his family and mine. If you went to a certain kind of school in Paisley, you were a Celtic fan. If you went to another kind of school, you were a Rangers fan. And there weren’t even that many St Mirren fans that are located at the town’s home club based in Paisley. 

Elaine has made her home in Donegal but her Scottish roots run deep 

“I have always been mad about Celtic. It has been a big passion of mine. Matthew was pretty much the same. And I would have been travelling in Supporters buses from the south of England and going up to games and this particular time there was a bus going from Birmingham, so friends of mine got ourselves up to Birmingham. And my future husband was on that bus. 

“We crossed paths a couple of times, but then one day out of the blue I got a tap on the shoulder - at another Celtic game against Rangers at Parkhead. I turned around and it was him and that is the way it started.”

Her husband was studying for a second degree in Birmingham and involved in social work, so that took her there, for a couple of years. 

The couple later took a yearning to move back to Scotland, landing just outside Edinburgh in a place called Rosyth. 

Elaine took a sabbatical with the birth of daughter Freya and when daughter Mhari arrived, it was the first time she had not worked since graduating.

It was a strange experience for a person that despite the joys of motherhood, felt she was wasting herself without actively contributing to society as well.

That saw her set up a toddler group with a friend of hers for a few years, which also suited being a Mum. 

Some private tuition followed at some other centres and the next thing was that she found herself running one of the tuition centres in Livingston.    

“A couple of hours twice a week culminated into something much more,” she explained.

At this juncture, notwithstanding the aforementioned Celtic passion, Elaine and Matthew are big Gaelic Games fans, in both football and hurling.

She said: “We were always popping over to watch games in Dublin and Croke Park or Pairc Ui Chaoimh as we also had Cork connections - my granddad was from Cobh and Matthew’s lineage also included that part of Munster.”   

While they looked south, initially, both had Donegal connections and the proximity to Scotland with the deep historical connections between both, cemented them to opt for Donegal. 

At holiday retreat  in Bundoran, eventually became their full time home in 2016.

While Elaine loved Scotland, the loss of a referendum for Scottish Independence in 2014, added an element of disillusionment that ultimately pushed them to seek new opportunities in the land of their mutual ancestors, Ireland.      

And so on the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the young family arrived in Donegal.

She said: “We always loved this area. We had the holiday home, and when the referendum did not go the right way, we had the means to move over and so we did.” 

In terms of work she said that the lack of Irish mitigated against taking a more mainstream entry into the Irish primary schools system, but it was the catalyst that saw the formation of the Emerald Education Centre. 

“I have always been one to be resilient and think outside the box. We moved over at the beginning of May (2016) and with about six months of preparatory work, I was already able to open up the business at the beginning of June.”

It has taken a few years to build up the business and culturally, it was a very similar backdrop to Scotland. So Elaine and family settled in quickly, added in part by the fact that they already had Donegal connections.   

On Bundoran she reflected: “It’s been fairly easy as I am an outgoing person anyway. I think if you put yourself out there and make connections, it is easy to become part of the community. You need to build your network more than if you were in a city, but the rewards that follow are well worth it.

On the Emerald Education Centre and what it now offers, she added: 

“I feel that I am in quite a unique position. I have been on both sides of the teacher’s desk. And I know what it is like, when you have a class of 30 kids. With the best will in the world, you cannot give them absolutely everything they need. And that is where I come in - with the private tuition, It is supplementary rather than anything else, It will support the child and fill those gaps. 

“Kids that I work with might have, at the moment anyway, gaps in learning through missing experiences during the Covid lockdown and that has become more acute than experienced in pre Covid tines

“With little children they would not have had phonics input that they normally have had and in areas like spelling - things that are really crucial in those early developmental years. 

The late Frannie Patrick, Elaine's father who was also a passionate Celtic FC supporter

She is sanguine about the future and will not deviate from an opportunistic approach and disposition, even if that occasionally requires thinking outside the box.

“The kids love Donegal, we feel at home for we are at home. Emma is now studying in Galway. Rougey the West End Pier and Gaelic Park are familiar haunts for Freya and Mhari and Matthew is using his unique skills to help young people thread through the education processes at third level.

“We want to ride the waves of opportunity and contribute in the best way possible, to this adorable county and its people, who have welcomed us, with open arms. In many ways, it is the full turning of the circle,” she concluded.