Katie Taylor rocked Dublin when she entered Croke Park to end her career in front of 83,000 roaring fans last Saturday.
“I don’t think there’s another country in the world that would sell 80,000 tickets for a female athlete,” she said after her victory. I personally think she could have sold three times that – at least.
The atmosphere was electric, and, even though her opponent, Flora Pili, put up a respectable resistance, it seemed clear that Katie had won that fight before it even started. The booming chants of “Ole, ole, ole, ole” set the air on fire, and it felt like the souls of every Irish person alive and gone were there to support our Wicklow hurricane. I can’t remember the last time I felt so proud of anything.
Katie had a thoughtful light in her eyes as she and her team processed into the arena accompanied by the song “All Hail Jesus.” She also had Psalm 18 written on her boxing shorts. It was perfect.
That kind of moment reminded me of when Mayo finally won the Sam Maguire Cup after decades of heartbreak, sparking one of the most rapturous outpourings of celebration the county has ever seen. I remember sitting with colleagues afterward, tracing our own tenuous links to Mayo, some of us reaching further than others. Mine was a favourite primary school teacher from Belmullet; someone else claimed a grandfather. Then one woman announced, quite proudly, that she was actually from Knock -the place where the miracle happened – and the whole table fell into a chorus of appreciative “oohs” and “aahs.”
I remember wishing, back then, that my own home county of Wicklow could feel that kind of pride. And then, last Saturday night, Katie brought a tear to every eye in this county – and far beyond it too.
Katie’s home town of Bray is the next town up from mine, and it’s where I went to primary and secondary school. I know Oldcourt, the estate she grew up in, and I know exactly how much she means to this area.
I’m not a huge sports fan, but I know a legend when I see one. Here’s the full record of Katie’s accolades, amateur and professional, capped off with her storybook retirement. Read it and you’ll understand why she’s considered the greatest woman in the history of boxing.
Amateur career
Professional career
It’s something like a superpower when a person who has attained the highest heights of their chosen discipline seems so unaffected by it all. I have the distinct impression that anyone who met her as an unknown citizen of Bray before her meteoric rise to international renown would have met the very same humble soul whose legacy of achievement is now forever written in stone. She just seems like an incredibly genuine person, which shines through all the more in a culture that so often rewards a kind of choreographed “authenticity” that never quite feels real.
“The whole country have seen my good times and also seen me during my devastation as well,” she said. “My story is the story of everybody in this room, everybody in the whole country.”
They say Katie broke through glass ceilings. I think she showed what dedication and faith can achieve. I know she would say her success was built on a foundation of trust in God, through whom all things are possible.
Katie is, I think, the perfect role model for the youth of this country — and even those of us who are longer in the tooth can draw so much from her strength, integrity, intelligence, dedication, honour, humility, and faith.
“Katie Taylor gave Ireland the uplift it badly needed. Well done to her,” wrote one commenter on X. Another put it more fervently still: “GOD’S FAITHFUL WARRIOR, who gives HIM all the credit, and who in return has made her Ireland’s greatest ever sports star and the best woman in boxing the world has ever seen. She is a shining credit to her family, Bray, Wicklow, Ireland, God, and herself. GOD BLESS HER ALWAYS!”
There’s a strange thing that happens in this country when we’re handed a moment like Saturday night. For ninety minutes, or ten rounds, nobody asks you to qualify what you’re feeling. Nobody tells you pride in your county, your town, your flag is something to be a little embarrassed about, or something to footnote with a disclaimer. You just feel it, whole and uncomplicated, standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers who are, for once, not strangers at all, because the nation is, afterall, one extended family.
We live in a moment in time where national pride is treated, more often than not, as something suspect. As a feeling to be managed rather than expressed, forever hedged with the assumption that loving your own place must come at someone else’s expense.
We have leaders who try to tell us that the flag Katie has so lovingly embraced throughout her dazzling career is a symbol of the “far-right”: I hope the jolts of electricity Saturday night gave us have slapped those eejits firmly back into their box, for now at least.
Katie never asked anyone’s permission to be proud of where she’s from, and she never made anyone else’s pride feel smaller for it. She just carried Bray, and Wicklow, and this whole country, into that ring with her, openly and without apology.
That’s the gift she gave us on Saturday, one that outlasts the scorecards. For one night, 83,000 people got to feel something simple and old-fashioned: that where you’re from matters, that the people who came before you and the place that shaped you are worth being loud about. She didn’t lecture anyone into that feeling. She just went out and won, and let us have it back — unashamed, unfiltered, and entirely earned.
Wicklow gave the world a warrior. Croke Park just reminded the rest of us what it feels like to be proud of her, and ourselves, our history, our nation, our future through her.
Now is the time to be unapologetically proud to be Irish.
Pslam 18
For who is God except the Lord?
And who is a rock besides our God?—
32 the God who girded me with strength,
and made my way safe.
33 He made my feet like the feet of a deer,
and set me secure on the heights.
34 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
35 You have given me the shield of your salvation,
and your right hand has supported me;
your help[b] has made me great.
36 You gave me a wide place for my steps under me,
and my feet did not slip.
37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
and did not turn back until they were consumed.
38 I struck them down, so that they were not able to rise;
they fell under my feet.