Do Irish fans really prefer Celtic over Rangers?

Ask anyone in a Dublin pub who Ireland gets behind in an Old Firm derby and you will hear the same answer nine times out of ten: Celtic. It is one of football's great assumed truths. But is it actually true, or is it a story we tell ourselves because it fits so neatly with history?

Celtic were founded in 1887 by an Irish Marist Brother, Brother Walfrid, to raise money for poor Irish immigrants in Glasgow's East End. Rangers, meanwhile, grew up in a very different community across the city. For decades the two clubs came to represent something bigger than football, and that identity travelled back across the Irish Sea with every family emigration, every returning worker, every Christmas visit.

Fast forward to today and the picture is more complicated. Younger Irish fans grew up watching Rangers players in green jerseys at international level. Streaming has broken open access to both clubs' matches. And a significant chunk of Northern Irish football culture leans the other way entirely.

When we opened a Who2Win poll for a Rangers versus Celtic fixture, the geographic pattern that emerged from Ireland was still tilted toward Celtic, but not by the landslide the stereotype would suggest. That gap has closed a lot in the last twenty years. The myth is partly true, but partly a story that has outlived its evidence.

The Old Firm is also one of the few club fixtures with genuinely global reach. Votes on the Who2Win Rangers vs Celtic poll come in from the United States, Canada, Australia, and across the Middle East and East Asia. Some are diaspora, some are Premier League fans looking for a second club, some are neutrals who just love a derby with an edge.

What is fascinating is how quickly the map shifts in the hours before kickoff. Ireland tends to move first, then Scotland fills in with an almost even split by county, then the rest of the world piles in during the game itself. It is one of the clearest examples on the platform of a fixture where nostalgia, identity and modern fandom all pull in different directions on the same map.

That is exactly why we built Who2Win. The romantic narratives around football are wonderful, but the actual data of who is cheering for who has always been invisible. Now, for the first time, every derby and every final has a live map behind it showing which countries are really pulling for which side.

If you want to test the myth for yourself, cast your vote on the live Rangers vs Celtic poll and watch the Ireland tally move in real time. Then dig into the Celtic and Rangers club pages to see how support for each side is distributed around the world.