80,000 and Counting: Katie Taylor's Croke Park Farewell Rewrites Irish Sporting History

Katie Taylor walks into Croke Park tomorrow night as the last Irish boxer to fight at GAA HQ — and the first to bring 80,000 people through the turnstiles to watch one. When Muhammad Ali fought Al "Blue" Lewis in July 1972, he couldn't fill a quarter of that number. Taylor's farewell against undefeated French opponent Flora Pili has become less a boxing match and more a national coronation, the kind of event that transcends sport and becomes part of the furniture of...