Katie Taylor in Croker would be a spiritual event, but instead joins the list of much-hyped stillborn projects

Roy Curtis

Katie Taylor displays her belts after victory over Karen Carabajal

March 07 2023 12:03 PM

Among U2’s abundance of towering compositions, the rousing, poetic 1984 hymn, “A Sort of Homecoming” soars, immense and arresting, on the lyrical skyline.

For the longest time, I have surrendered to a spine-tingling image of Katie Taylor on a Croke Park ring-walk, the great coliseum packed and pulsing with roused humanity, the beautiful, moving closing lines of that song piercing the night sky as Ireland’s warrior queen steps between the ropes.

“For tonight at last I am coming home.

“I am coming home.”

An explosion of light and sound, a fever of pride, identity and belonging burning through 80,000 souls.

Katie at Croker would be one of those generational, immortal national coming-together gatherings.

Something precious and eternal and existential, dwarfing boxing, bigger by a factor of 10 than sport itself.

A nation reaching out to embrace, to express its gratitude to a phenomenal woman, a pathfinder, an inspiration.

It would be the arc of Katie’s immense career arriving at its natural capstone. A thunderous eve in the company of Amanda Serrano that would supercharge the land of her birth.

Ireland, to borrow a line from Joe Biden’s inauguration speech, one he in turn acquired from St Augustine, reimagined as a “multitude defined by the common objects of their love.”

That Katie for Croker is in danger of joining the list of much-hyped but ultimately stillborn projects feels terribly sad.

But if that's how it pans out, it would be more than just a source of regret.

Should this last crowning, silken thread in the colossal tapestry of her career never be stitched – principally because her promoter declines to meet Croke Park security costs – it would amount to something approaching a full-blown scandal.

A May date at the 3 Arena against Chantelle Cameron is being mooted as a kind of Croker Lite, or a Croker 0.0, a substitute for the real thing, but with all the potency removed.

When the Kildare footballers insisted on ‘Newbridge or Nowhere’ ahead of their 2018 qualifier with Mayo (which looked like it might be switched from the Lilywhites’ home ground) they did so because they understood the symbolic importance of place.

A Taylor fight in Dublin should be, must be in Croke Park.

She has earned that landmark moment a thousand times over and it seems outrageous that a promoter who has surely turned a handsome profit from his association with this magnetic fighter seems unwilling to open the purse-strings to make it happen.

It has been reported – I have no idea if it is true – that among Eddie Hearn’s concerns is the fear that Taylor would not sell-out Croke Park.

That feels like a preposterous retreat from reality.

An admittedly unscientific poll of a number of friends last week was illuminating. None had been to a boxing promotion over the past 10 years. All 10 of them would not only make a beeline for Katie in Croker, but they would also bring children or grandchildren to witness something historic.

Just to say thank you.

How many women with zero interest in prize fighting would feel it essential to be present on such a night to celebrate a lady who has smashed through glass ceilings, shattered gender stereotypes, animated and galvanised their daughters into pursuing a career in sport.

Katie in Croker would be an unmissable event, a festival of gratification, sport as an uplifting spiritual event.

In our humble, ill-informed view, it would sell out in seconds.

Almost a year ago, Madison Square Garden, the most famous arena in sport, pulsed and shuddered like a living creature as Taylor and Serrano delivered a fight for the ages.

That April Saturday had the glow of a Gotham billboard illuminating Times Square. It was epic and monumental, two titans going toe-to-toe, emptying themselves, their gladiator spirit kidnapping every atom of their audience’s attention.

It is entirely possible, if the will truly exists, to deliver a Croke Park sequel.

Maybe not in May, but certainly in late summer or early autumn. Katie is desperate to fight at Croke Park. Serrano, for all the talk of injuries and reluctance to commit, could certainly be persuaded if the price was right.

The GAA are happy to facilitate the event – as they have with rugby and soccer in recent time – but they are entirely justified in expecting to have security costs covered.

Taylor turns 37 in July; the hour-glass is emptying, the window of possibility closing.

Money, as it so often is in professional boxing, seems to stand alone as an immediate logistical stumbling block.

A Sort of Homecoming is a track from the album ‘The Unforgettable Fire’, precisely the kind of blaze that would be lit if Katie Taylor danced into a ring in a teeming Croke Park.

Those words again.

“For tonight at last I am coming home.

“I am coming home."

Few are as entitled to hear those words than Ireland's most beloved champion.