Croke Park for Katie Taylor’s fight made Madison Square Garden look like a boxing gym in Bray

Katie Taylor’s retirement party looked less like a boxing event than a national celebration. Around 80,000 people filled Croke Park on a mild September night, turning the stadium into a mass tribute to the Irish fighter.

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It’s unreal

Natasha Jonas, Taylor’s former opponent and an RTÉ pundit for the occasion, called the scale of it “it’s unreal”. She was not entirely surprised. Jonas recalled being “in the middle of nowhere in China” while trying to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games. When Taylor appeared, she heard a huge roar and discovered that the crowd included Irish supporters from Beijing. “People just follow her wherever she goes,” Jonas said.

The crowd may not have broken the record for attendance at a fight. That distinction apparently belongs to a 1941 Tony Zale and Billy Pryor bout in Milwaukee, which reportedly drew 135,132 people. But Croke Park offered something the old Juneau Park crowd could not: spectacular lighting, giant-screen presentation and a stadium full of people singing along.

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People just follow her wherever she goes

The songs carried the familiar emotional contradictions of Irish sporting occasions. The crowd sang “Grace”, “The Fields of Athenry” and “Zombie”, even as visitors might have struggled to understand why a celebration featured songs about execution, famine and the deaths of innocents during the Troubles. RTÉ’s montages brought viewers and pundit Bernard Dunne close to tears. “This is more than just a boxing match,” Dunne told presenter Jacqui Hurley. “It’s a celebration, a thanks for what Katie’s given us over the years.”

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This is more than just a boxing match

The emotion built through the evening. The stadium lit up its phone screens while three-quarters of Westlife performed “You Raise Me Up”, Marty Morrissey danced with Michael Flatley to “Olé Olé Olé”, and Bono, Ed Sheeran, Niall Horan and Rory McIlroy sent video tributes. As Hurley put it, the night felt like “a rave that meets a football occasion”.

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It’s a rave that meets a football occasion