Katie Taylor deserved her own farewell and the Irish people would have come out to honour her at Croke Park, the home of our national games - she did not need to be part of this English circus

By MARK GALLAGHER FOR MAILONLINE Published: 00:17, 13 April 2026 | Updated: 00:17, 13 April 2026 THERE was a double helping of Brian Kerr on Virgin Media last Tuesday, which is never a bad thing. Firstly, we had the former Ireland manager sitting in the studio alongside Damien Delaney dissecting what was probably the best game of football in this strange season, Bayern Munich’s hugely entertaining 2-1 win in the Bernabeu. We can only feel sorry for those who had to endure Arsenal’s typically turgid win over Sporting instead of seeing the wonderful Michael Olise enhance his growing reputation or Harry Kane further burnishing his Ballon D’Or credentials by scoring his 49th goal of the season. No sooner had we got our breath back from that superb encounter in Madrid than Kerr’s familiar voice was heard again, extolling the virtues of boxing clubs and the work they do in at local level. ‘The boxing clubs are vital in these communities, not just in developing boxers, but developing people,’ Kerr could be heard saying in the introduction of a documentary on Drimnagh Boxing Club that aired immediately after the Champions League action. Iconic: Katie Taylor before her undisputed super lightweight championship fight with Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden last year It was a subject close to Kerr’s heart. His late father Frankie, a six-time Irish amateur champion whom Kerr told us worked in Dunlop’s making tennis racquets before becoming a tailor on O’Connell Street, was one of those who set the foundations of the club in the 1960s. He would pass away in 1968, before the hall that he and friends like Niall McCarvill and Christy Healy had envisaged came to be. But given the club train in ‘Frankie Kerr Memorial Hall’, his contribution to the club will always be remembered. The documentary leaned heavily on the contributions of the Carruth brothers. Michael is the most famous obviously, having won that emotional Olympic gold in Barcelona back in 1992 and he underlined the importance of giving back to the club which nurtured him. It was a wholesome half-hour of television chronicling how the club became such a central part of life in Drimnagh, but there was a wider message with Michael Carruth at one point suggesting that sometimes, boxing coaches have to become social care workers for kids who are experiencing difficulties or come from tough circumstances. These clubs, and their coaches, in working-class areas have often given youngsters a lifeline – and a chance to harness ambition and dream of becoming a world or Olympic champion. And the work they do is generally taken for granted, as Kerr pointed out. ‘What boxing clubs are doing is developing solid citizens and these clubs deserve a bit more funding from the people who dish out the grants and the funding. They like to pay lip-service to boxing when the medals come home, but they don’t give them enough.’ It is a well-worn argument at this stage that boxing doesn’t get enough in relation to the success it has brought the country or respect it deserves as Ireland’s most successful Olympic sport, before you consider Carruth’s point about coaches guiding and helping children. Heavy duty: Tyson Fury throws a jab against Russia's Arslanbek Makhmudov That’s the good side of the sport. But the grubbier aspects of boxing are never too far from the surface. A couple of days after the documentary aired, it emerged that there was more than a grain of truth in the rumour that Katie Taylor’s mooted farewell show in Croke Park would have a co-main event in the long-awaited heavyweight showdown between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Stadium director Peter McKenna confirmed as much to BBC. It seems that over the course of the past decade when Taylor has broken down more barriers in the pro ranks than she did as an amateur, she has reconciled herself to the fact that there has to be a showbiz element to professional boxing. That it is a necessary evil which is part of signing professional papers. She didn’t seem to mind that her second bout of the classic trilogy with Amanda Serrano had to act as a guardrail and provide some credibility to the whole circus around Mike Tyson’s exhibition bout with Jake Paul. Taylor has been around the pro game long enough to know that can be just the price to pay to bring eyeballs to an event. Part of being a pro boxer – especially a successful one – is knowing that the sport can drift towards the WWE at times. Social: Anthony Joshua interacts with fans after the Heavyweight fight between Tyson Fury and Arslanbek Makhmudov The British boxing fraternity have been waiting for Joshua to face Fury for an awfully long time. It had been widely assumed that if the former world heavyweight champions did ever face off in the ring, it would be in Saudi Arabia given that the influence of Turki Alalshikh has made the Desert Kingdom the new powerbase of the sport. However, the current instability in the Middle East has taken Riyadh off the table which allowed Croker to step into the breach. And McKenna seemed to be just as enthused about the prospect of bringing Fury to Jones’ Road this September as Taylor. All of this remains hypothetical at the moment. While Fury made his return to the ring at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium last night, Joshua has yet to make his intentions clear about resuming his boxing career following his involvement in the fatal car accident that claimed the lives of two of his closest friends. Who is benefitting from a night that was supposed to be a celebration of one of our greatest ever sports people being overshadowed, and possibly engulfed, by the sideshow and circus which will be Fury-Joshua? And given it is the notoriously unreliable Tyson Fury, there is always the chance of an eleventh-hour withdrawal. What would that mean for the card? After the last couple of years of barbs, accusations and counter-accusations in the media between Eddie Hearn and Croke Park, there had been renewed hope recently Taylor would realise her dream of emulating Muhammad Ali for her final bout. It should be a celebration, not a circus. Done properly, the event could be an appreciation of not only our greatest boxer, but also everything that boxing does for communities in and around Croke Park. Pierce O’Leary from down the road in Sheriff Street and nurtured in Docklands boxing club deserves a place on the card. So too Thomas Carty, a regular sparring partner of Joshua’s, who is from nearby Phibsboro. Making plans: Eddie Hearn and Anthony Joshua in the stands at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium It could be an evening to thank the clubs in Cabra, Crumlin, Drimnagh and elsewhere for their coaches occasionally acting as a social care worker, as Carruth suggested in Tuesday’s documentary. But that part of the sport seems it will always be taken for granted as boxing constantly struggles to get the respect it deserves. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.