The past week’s most unsettling and arresting image – a bystander’s screengrab of the chief suspect in the fatal stabbing of Qayyum Balogun racing down a Dublin city centre street, blade poised in his right hand – offers a vision of decency sinking into quicksand. It is a stark, terrifying portrait of Ireland surrendering to violent anarchy, of societal norms rupturing at the seams. That such feral violence unspooled at Grafton Street’s nape, Monday’s multiple cordoned-off crime scenes stilling the city’s tourist and shopping heartbeat,
and that such nihilism followed a gig at the iconic, beloved Bewley’s cafe, supercharged a sense of shock. Sometimes there is only darkness, an obliteration of the light. In the wake of Mr Balogun’s brutal death, the old town cowered beneath a canopy of forbidding thunderclouds. A city reeling and seeking to rediscover its sense of self urgently required a counterpunch of civility, some uplifting intervention from an incandescent, incorruptible, unwavering source. Not for the first time, Katie Taylor stepped into the breach. Confirmation that
the nation’s most universally admired citizen will enjoy a last dance at Croke Park felt like the application of a soothing balm to aching spirits. An imminent moment of healing, a door opening to a cathartic coming together. Katie at Croker offers the tantalising prospect of something infinitely more substantial than a moment of sporting theatre. When this self-made sovereign of the ring steps between the ropes, the night will echo to the drums of national rejoicing. As it so often has in the past,
Dublin 3 on the first weekend of September, traditionally – at least until the GAA wilfully butchered its own calendar – the setting for hurling’s ultimate contest, will again showcase the best of Ireland. An intensely private individual, Katie’s instincts are to hoist up the drawbridge behind which her most secret thoughts reside. Away from the roped rectangle that is her factory floor, she is the type of woman who takes refuge in silence. That a stridently undemonstrative athlete was so public in her yearning
for a Croke Park farewell speaks of the almost mystical power of this sacred acreage, how it is inextricably bound to the story of Ireland. When pondering the hulking arena, a description of Amritsar’s Golden Temple might resonate with some: “A haven in the flux of life, accessible to all. It is the ship that crossed the ocean of ignorance.” Dripping with history, a quasi-religious shrine, Croke Park is the nation’s colosseum and cathedral. Last week, as he announced his retirement, snooker’s Ken Doherty described
carrying the World Championship trophy onto the pitch at half-time in the 1997 Leinster final between Dublin and Meath as a moment that will live in his heart forever. To walk onto Croke Park at such moments is to be buffeted by the breath of history. It is a place that known immeasurable triumph and unspeakable tragedy, a canvass on which the story of Ireland, both in its struggle for independence and its assertion of that acquired nationhood, has been painted. For years, amid the
achingly slow progress in bringing the country’s most celebrated sportsperson to the people’s palace, this correspondent has campaigned to make Katie at Croker a reality. On TV and radio, in social media responses to words on these pages, I was presented with logistical, financial, security and political reasons why it could and would never happen. Some of the arguments were legitimate and thought-provoking. How, the naysayers wondered, could a fighter who so recently struggled to sell out the 3 Arena possibly come close to filling
the GAA’s enormous manor? That Leinster could only attract 9,000 to Lansdowne Road last Saturday for one of their biggest fixtures of the season, that just a shade over 16,000 watched the Dubs go head to head with Louth a day later, seemed to confirm both that people were growing more choosy in their spending, and that global events were having a profound effect on people’s disposable income. This writer’s counter conviction has always been that a Taylor fight at Croke Park would be a
cultural celebration of an unrivalled life of achievement, a bigger-than-sport, hand-of-history homecoming that would have a magnetic attraction. A night immune to fashion. One which, assuming tickets are not extortionately priced (it will be a scandal if they are), can offer an irresistible moment in time, a chance to be there at the encore instant of a figure who has so enriched Irish life. A chance to salute an ambassador who has so powerfully advanced the case of women in sport. In discussing Katie ,
the inclination in these quarters has always been to be directed by the compass of the heart. Whiplashed by one bad news story after the next, have we ever so urgently required one of those cathartic evenings of Taylor magic, the kind of night that might light all our lanterns? The exalted prizefighter turns 40 in four weeks, barely a trickle of grains remaining in the hourglass counting down to the conclusion of her peerless competitive career. Maybe, after half a lifetime on Broadway, the
gifts of youth are more elusive these days. Perhaps the force of nature that so memorably seized the deeds to the London Olympics 14 summers ago has stilled a little. It is entirely legitimate to argue that her trilogy with Amanda Serrano – notably that heady April night at Madison Square Garden in 2022 – represented the unrepeatable summit of her professional career. That what we get at Croker will be something less than peak-Katie. There might even be a hint of one of those
football testimonials – all be it one with a world title at stake – about the Croke Park date with Flora Pili. But even if that September 5th outing is effectively an open-top bus parade disguised as a prize fight, it still has limitless potential to provide one of the most spine-tingling Irish sporting moments of the decade. A spectacular farewell to arms, the emotional dividend of which would gift Taylor’s huge, captive audience – a congregation that crosses gender, age, geography and social background
– the full brass of being. Oasis conquered Croker fully a quarter century after their last number one not because nostalgia sells, their greatest hits reminding middle aged folk of some of the landmark days in their younger lives. Taylor has repeatedly taken Irish people to a place of rapture, triggered the kind of emotional avalanches that reach down and take hold of the soul, nights that endure forever. Like Noel Gallagher strumming the first chords of Wonderwall, the opening seconds of the YouTube footage
of her celebrating her Olympic gold medal allows us to time-travel, hearts palpitating with a surge of identity and belonging. Katie’s fights have been a series of postcards from the better part of the human spirit, her story an inspirational one, particularly to young women stepping out on the road of life and craving positive role models. When I think of September, I imagine the ring walk, the hem of the night sky lit by pyrotechnics, the boundless power of a gladiator woman advancing against
the backdrop of some atmospheric – maybe Celtic – tune. Picture it: Katie in warrior mode, a master of the sweet science craft lost in the sandstorm of her thoughts, like an ancient cave art depiction come to life. An electric storm of emotion piercing the Drumcondra air, the massive amphitheatre palpitating and alive, surrendering to a huge yet intimate brotherhood and sisterhood of existence. The kind of surge in the blood that comes along just a few times in a lifetime. On giant screens,
a reminder of an immortal 2012 London hour when, Olympic gold medal secured, a kind of euphoric relief gushed from Taylor as she circled the Excel Arena, her body swaddled in an Irish tricolour, her faced lit by the flag of joyous release. The spinetingling might of such a spectacle would, of itself, be worth the price of admission. Too often, the news cycle can implant a sense of futility and disgust and hopelessness at our core. In the early hours of Monday last, Qayyum
Balogun’s young life was snuffed out and a blanket of doom folded over Dublin city. Out of the lengthening shadows came Katie Taylor. An umbrella against the most violent showers of life. A reminder there is a better way. If you require a renovation of the spirit and if you can afford the asking price, consider a September Saturday night in Croke Park. For an hour or two a rainbow of optimism will paint the sky above the nation’s greatest arena. Like a star at
the centre of the solar system, Katie will radiate light and heat to the orbiting masses. A great Irish woman’s last dance, an end of summer display of choreography as uplifting as any many of us will know in our lifetime. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.
Dublin, Qayyum Balogun, Grafton Street, Bewley’s cafe, Katie Taylor, Croke Park, September 5, Flora Pili, Amanda Serrano, Ken Doherty, Leinster final 1997