Ireland’s world champion boxer on her faith, her family’s hard journey and why the potential mega-fight with Amanda Serrano will be worthy of making women’s boxing history
“I love the fact that God chooses the lowly ones,” Katie Taylor says quietly in a conversation that is very different from the punishing dialogue she produces in the ring. She might be the most loved sporting personality in Ireland and ranked the best pound-for-pound woman boxer in the world but Taylor retains her humility.
She is in the midst of describing her maternal grandmother and how she and her family overcame impoverishment in Bray, not far from Dublin. “My granny had a tough life but she is such a fantastic woman. There’s not a bitter bone in her body. She grew up in poverty and we were the same. We wouldn’t have had a lot of money growing up. We were a very, very poor family living in the roughest area but God chose our family and did something with us. I have two brothers and one sister and we all became successful. But nobody would have looked at our family or our house and thought: ‘Success will come to them.’”
