The taxi ride from Dublin airport down into the city center takes just over half an hour on a good day but on a busy September Saturday like this one, it took twice that. Throughout this run, between every song, there was only one topic up for discussion: Katie Taylor.

It is difficult to put into words how much the 40-year-old means to the people of Ireland. That’s all people too, not just boxing folk. As soon as you enter the terminal building off the tarmac you are greeted by a picture of her, leaning out of an Aer Lingus cockpit holding the gold medal she claimed at the London 2012 Olympics.

She grew up in Bray, County Wicklow, which shares a border to the south of County Dublin but hers is a story which has captivated the whole of the island. There were a few, like me, who required a flight to attend her big farewell at Croke Park but we were in the minority. This was a celebration of Ireland and its people as much as anything else.

The city buzzed like it normally does as Saturday afternoon turned to early evening but after crossing the River Liffey and heading north towards the stadium, it felt like a Taylor pilgrimage. From there, still 30 minutes from Croke Park on foot, the green and white streams were already forming as the crowds made their way to the fight.

Along the route, street vendors sold basically anything on which they could print Taylor’s name or face. T-shirts, scarves, flags and bucket hats were doing a roaring trade while replica Olympic gold medals and “Katie” snowglobes seemed to be shifting more slowly. A few stalls were even pumping out cans of gin and tonic.

Every pub along the route was completely packed with crowds of people spilling out onto the pavement but this was unlike most other sporting crowds. The edgy buzz of potential violence which accompanies most football match days was completely absent. This carried an almost wedding-like energy. It was pure celebration.

Whether it was for bookmakers, a supermarket or anything else, all the adverts on the electric boards which lined the route were Taylor-themed. Deliveroo, the takeaway service, stated that “Homecomings just got even better” while Paddy Power’s ad read: “The Goat at Croke. A proper Irish goodbye.”

That seemed like a curious choice of phrase given that an Irish goodbye typically means to leave a party or gathering quietly so as not to make a scene. But this particular farewell, a few hundred yards away at Croke Park, would be the grandest scene possible.

There had not been boxing at “Croker” since July 19, 1972, when Muhammad Ali stopped Al “Blue” Lewis in the 11th round in front of an official crowd of 18,725, although it has been suggested that thousands more without tickets managed to get in to watch that night.

Taylor’s long-time manager Brian Peters had considered the famous old stadium as the destination for Steve Collins’ anticipated 1995 rematch with Chris Eubank before they opted to take it south to Cork’s Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Taylor herself said she had essentially considered herself retired since beating Amanda Serrano for the third time in July 2025. That was unless they could “get Croke Park."

It was seen as a gamble at first, given the costs required to stage boxing there, but any doubt dissipated once 83,000 tickets sold out in 30 minutes. Like with any Taylor crowd, this was a complete cross section of society with men, women, children, families and everyone else in between combining to produce the biggest crowd in history for an event headlined by a solo female.

The fact that it was heavily sponsored by Lidl, the budget supermarket, also felt strangely appropriate. Firstly, there are few other brands who invest more heavily in women’s sport than them, but this event was about ordinary people.

The truth is, you can count on one hand the number of athletes, man or woman, who crowd draw more than 80,000 at the gate right now. There are also very few nations who back their sporting heroes quite like the Irish do. Ever since her amateur days, which gleaned six European titles, five world titles and an Olympic gold medal, her country has backed her every step of the way.

It is why complete strangers hugged each other and wept as she made her final ring-walk around Croke Park as Flora Pili waited inside the ring. I covered Canelo Alvarez’s triumphant return to Guadalajara in 2023, when he beat John Ryder at Estadio Akron, but even that could not compete with the sheer emotion and devotion that coursed through the crowd on Saturday night.

But why? What is it about Taylor that has resulted in such widespread affection? Irish journalist Gavan Casey put that exact question to her in the post-fight press conference and even she could not answer it. While you can count the 83,000 fans who made the trip to salute her one last time in person, it is genuinely impossible to quantify the number of other lives she has touched over the course of her boxing career.

Sure there are the easy ones, like Rose Volante, who Taylor stopped to win the WBO lightweight title in March 2019. Volante had never seen the sort of money she made that night, and she used it to buy her mother a house in her native Brazil. Or Delfine Persoon, one of Taylor’s greatest adversaries, who used her Taylor purse to open a community gym back home in Holland which continues to change lives.

But what of the thousands of girls who suddenly felt like they belonged in the boxing gym after Taylor and her peers all competed at an Olympics for the first time at London 2012. Taylor herself famously pretended to be a boy when she was a youngster just to feel accepted. Now, thanks to her, nobody will ever have to do that in a boxing club again.

In those days, it was her father Peter who taught her to box and he was in her corner throughout her amateur success. Peter and Taylor’s mother Bridget separated in 2016 and so did that father-fighter duo. In her first major tournament without him, she would lose in the quarter-finals of the Rio Olympics before turning professional with new trainer Ross Enamait and promoter Eddie Hearn four months later.

But, on Saturday night, for the first time ever, Peter was in attendance for one of his daughter’s professional fights, nowhere near the corner but just watching. He would be one of the first people that Taylor thanked once she took the microphone to address the crowd following her wide unanimous decision victory over Pili. “I love you dad,” she signed off.

Taylor, who became three-time undisputed champion as a result of the win, also paid tribute to her mother, her manager, her trainer and even her husband Sean, who has been kept completely away from the spotlight since they first met. Amazingly, everybody inside the stadium stayed put for the entirety of her speeches and cheered as she laid all her belts and her final fight gloves in the centre of the ring.

But, eventually, once the talking was over and the team pictures had been captured, the lights went up and it was time to leave. The crowds turned on their heels and began to pour back out into the Dublin night. By now, the Taylor merch was down to half price, t-shirts were going for a fiver; those medals available for €1 a pop. Taylor the fighter is gone but the world keeps turning.

How long does it take to change the face of an entire sport? Taylor’s professional career lasted exactly 510 weeks from her debut on November 26, 2016 to Saturday, September 5, 2026, a date in Irish sport which will now be forever remembered fondly.

Taylor’s first Sunday morning as a non-boxer was bathed in glorious Dublin sunshine. Back in the taxi and back up the M50, it was still Taylor who dominated the radio chatter. Her career might be finished but really her legacy is only just getting started.