LOVE/CELTIC

Irish actor Johnny Ward on his everlasting love of Celtic, performing in gangland drama Love/Hate, and finishing second in Dancing With The Stars

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WHEN Johnny Ward’s classmates favoured Manchester United, Liverpool and Aston Villa in the early 1990s, the future Irish actor chose a team whose values reflected his own.

He fell in love with the Paradise side as he watched them stop the 10, journey down the Road to Seville and, most recently, clinch their 10th successive domestic trophy in this year’s League Cup.

Now, the established performer has enjoyed roles in Irish megahit Love/Hate, and even featured on Dancing With The Stars, where he and partner Emily Barker finished runners-up – having reached the final as a promise to his late father, who was diagnosed with cancer during filming.

Now a member of the Naomh Padraig Celtic Supporters’ Club in Dublin, the actor still keeps a screenshot of the time the official Celtic Football Club Twitter account retweeted an image of him cutting shapes on the TV dance contest, an achievement which almost tops meeting Shunsuke Nakamura in-person.

You played Paulie Lawless in Season 5 of Love/Hate. What was it like working on the show?

Love/Hate was massive here in Ireland. It was aired on RTE on a Sunday, and you know that way when you go into work on Monday, everyone talks about the football? When Love/Hate was on, people would be talking about the football and Love/Hate at the same time, it was that popular. The whole nation was behind it – they used to have lock-ins at pubs, you could hear a pin drop when it was on, and there were private screenings all over the place. For me, it was the first time that Irish TV took a risk. RTE, which is our version of BBC, they tried to get