i have a soft spot for celtic, my dad used to support them (being from tralee he had no access to LOI football, although he liked to keep an eye on how shamrock rovers were doing), i have no problem with irish people (or for that matter english, welsh, german or chinese people) supporting celtic or any other foreign club. i certainly don't hate the clubs themselves.
what i do have a problem with is people who exclusively support a foreign team telling me i'm mad for being a city fan because the standard is poor, especially so when they invariably turn out not to know the first thing about irish soccer. his isn't neccessarily the fault of the people involved. There are huge tracts of this country where you do not have a LOI team, and the media, our own included, bombard the populace with foreign matches and news, usually eclipsing our own league.
i have a huge problem with irish people hating rangers and their players (booing reyna at landsdowne was pathetic), i don't particularly like the sectarian element in scottish soccer and recognise that many rangers fans are *****s. But in ireland you do not have to walk into work on the monday after an old firm derby and have your face rubbed in a loss by a rangers fan, so the paranoia and hatred is unjustified.
the main problem the average irish person has with the idiot celtic fans is their celebration of the perceived link between celtic fc and irish nationalism, the ra chants (which happen at city games too) and english/proitestant hating that goes with it disgusts us. celtic themselves are trying to distance themselves from this, it's already cut short neil lennon's international career.
but i've never seen so many idiot celtic fans than in the shed on the day city played celtic in a preseason friendly.
DJ, no one should tell you who to support, that's daft, but why do you pay so much attention to these idiots that you've wound up hating an entire club??