The ghosts of Croke Park

When hope was dwindling for a Croke Park date, some people began to consider alternatives. Maybe Katie Taylor’s retirement bout didn’t have to take place at these hallowed Dublin grounds.

Another Irish national stadium — the Aviva, which hosts the country’s rugby and soccer internationals — was floated as a possibility. It seats over 51,000, which is still a fine turnout for a boxing match. Right?

“No, it’s nothing but Croke Park for me,” replied Taylor, Ireland’s most beloved athlete. And that was that.

Others might not understand, but what Taylor and most Irish agree on is that Croke Park is far more than just a stadium. Irish people dream of performing there. Those who have, even as children, count it among the great achievements of their lives. 

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was founded in 1884, in the midst of British rule. Its goal was to promote the Irish identity while also reviving indigenous sports. The site where Croke Park’s facilities now stand has hosted Gaelic games since 1891. The GAA became the exclusive owners of it in 1913, purchasing the grounds for £3,500.

At the time, it was little more than a field. Today, it is one of the largest stadiums in Europe. Its cultural and historical significance, however, is much greater than the sum of its seats.

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Dublin’s Croke Park, the 80,000-seat Irish national stadium. (Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

The name comes from one of the original patrons of the GAA, Archbishop Thomas Croke. The stands within the stadium bear the names of formative historical figures — Michael Cusack, Maurice Davin and Frank Dineen — from the fledgling years of the organization. The presence of another, known as Hogan’s Stand, is a stark reminder of the GAA’s history and the forces that attempted to impede its mission. 

On the morning of Nov. 21, 1920, with the country in the throes of the Irish War of Independence, volunteers for the Irish Republican Army assassinated 15 suspected British intelligence agents. Later that day, British forces stormed Croke Park during a football match between Dublin and Tipperary. Entering through the southwest gate, they opened fire on a crowd of around 5,000 spectators, killing 14 people, with three children and Tipperary footballer Michael Hogan among them. The day became known as Bloody Sunday.

Fifty-two years after Bloody Sunday, Muhammad Ali headlined the first and only boxing event hosted in the stadium. Entering through the gate opposite the one used by the British forces, he defeated Al Lewis. When he returned to the stadium in 2003 as an ambassador for the Special Olympics, Ali requested that he enter the venue the same way he had in 1972. Since then, the corridor has been known as “Ali Tunnel.”

It’s impossible not to be struck by the history within the walls of Irish sport’s promised land. It’s as if the ghosts of Croke, Cusack, Davin, Dineen, Hogan and even Ali, along with the countless sporting heroes who played for nothing more than the pride in the colors on their back, are right there with you. 

These ghosts don’t haunt, but they do hover, bearing witness to the birth of new legends on the hallowed ground every summer. 

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Irish boxing icon Katie Taylor is set to retire Saturday night with her Croke Park fight against Flora Pili.

Cut into the landscape of the north inner city, Croke Park stands today as a physical manifestation of the GAA’s cultural resistance to British sporting influence.

Rule 42 in the association’s official guide insisted that the grounds would never be used for “foreign games.” But with the field hosting baseball and American football games since the 1940s, as well as Ali’s boxing bout in 1972, most Irish agreed that “foreign games” really meant British sports.

When Lansdowne Road — now the Aviva Stadium — was set to be demolished in the mid-2000s, it was determined that Croke Park was the only suitable venue to accommodate the numbers that would attend Irish rugby and soccer internationals. It was a topic for heated debate across the country, but on April 16, 2005, a total of 227 delegates voted in favor of (with 97 against) relaxing Rule 42 to allow the games to be played there.

The first rugby international was set for Feb. 11, 2007, when Ireland welcomed France. Two weeks later, England came to town. Croke Park, a venue created in protest of Irish sports being outlawed under British rule, would now be hosting the English national team. 

Then there was the anthem. How would “God Save The Queen” be observed when it rang out through the stands, the same venue that witnessed the atrocities of Bloody Sunday?

The apprehension was thick in the air as the brass band fired off the first few bars of the English anthem. Croke Park was the picture of respect as the traveling support sounded off. Then came time for the Irish anthem “Amhrán na bhFiann” (The Soldier’s Song). The images of hulking Irish prop John Hayes uncontrollably weeping as the crowd roared the song in unison has become baked into the history of the grounds. 

England went on to reach the World Cup final that year, but that night in “Croker” they were never going to leave with their hands raised. 

In what has become one of the most historic victories in Irish rugby history, Ireland won 43-13, handing its old rival its worst defeat ever in the Six Nations tournament history at the time.

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Ireland celebrates against England during the RBS 6 Nations match at Croke Park, Dublin in 2007. (Niall Carson, PA Images via Getty Images)

Even though Rule 42 was permanently relaxed in 2010, there is nothing like the spectacle of Croke Park on the Sunday of an All-Ireland final. The country’s national stadium is at its most electrifying on those days, when more than 82,000 spectators pack the stands to see two of Ireland’s 32 counties compete for the most coveted championship trophies in the games — the Sam Maguire Cup in Gaelic football, and the Liam MacCarthy Cup in hurling. Even at those very highest echelons, they remain amateur rather than professional pursuits. In other words, unpaid.

The two sports — hurling and Gaelic football — are the two primary games governed by the association. Gaelic football can be viewed as a hybrid of soccer, rugby and basketball. Hurling is a high-speed stick-and-ball game with origins in Irish mythology. Widely regarded as the fastest field sport in the world, its unique blend of physicality and skill has been described as “a cross between hockey and murder.”

This past summer brought a new classic, when Mayo defeated Kerry, the most successful team in the history of Gaelic football. When the final whistle sounded, grown men and women fell to their knees with tears streaming down their faces. 

This was far more than an All-Ireland win. It was the lifting of a 75-year curse.

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Kobe McDonald of Mayo celebrates after victory in the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship final match between Kerry and Mayo at Croke Park.

As the legend goes, the last Mayo team to win an All-Ireland in 1951 were enjoying its victory parade and failed to pay their respects when passing a funeral in Foxford. The priest who was overseeing proceedings was believed to have put a hex on the team, insisting that they would never win another All-Ireland championship while any of the triumphant players remained alive.

As Mayo crashed out of 11 All-Ireland finals during its barren stretch, the myth grew stronger. As the defeats kept coming, the tale cast a broader shadow and grew under the skin of the people.

After the coveted Sam Maguire trophy was lifted this year, a mass search began. Due to the scarcity of tickets, thousands of family members — unable to sit together during the game — attempted to find each other to share the historic moment. 

Once reunited, the tears came again. This wasn’t just for them, but for the family members, friends and acquaintances who didn’t live long enough to see it happen.

They may not have been there in flesh, but there are countless Mayo people that will tell you they could feel the presence of their lost ones in that moment.

Approaching 50 years as a volunteer, Jerry Grogan has worn so many hats for the GAA that “The Voice of Croke Park” is only one of them. 

As well as being a lifelong educator, Grogan has played a key role in the development of Cumann na mBunscol, a voluntary group of teachers that promotes Gaelic games in primary schools. He became known as “The Voice of Croke Park” for his work as the stadium announcer, a role which he took up in 2003. In lock-step with the association’s goal of promoting Irish culture, he makes his announcements in both Irish and English from his match day position in the Hogan stand. 

Grogan has watched the GAA’s goal of restoring the popularity of Irish sports come to fruition, with Cumann na mBunscol playing a pivotal role by engaging at a youth level. Like McMahon, he has been enriched by his work with the association in a way that goes well beyond financial gain.

“Volunteerism is the very fabric and ethos of the association,” he told Uncrowned. “People give their time and their expertise for the promotion of the game and for our history, culture and legacy. Money never came into it. And if money did come into it, it would be a totally different association altogether.”

Grogan was “infused” with the GAA, growing up in the picturesque town of Cahersiveen in county Kerry in the 1950s. He remembers legendary Gaelic footballer Mick O’Connell — “still the best player I’ve ever seen” — bringing trophies through the town when he was a child and rowing across to Valentia Island after the celebrations had finished. Later, he got involved in street games and vowed to give back to the younger generation.

“I really need to scratch myself every time I go into Croke Park. I think of growing up in Cahersiveen and being mad into the football. My father died when I was only 9 and we had no car. I remember standing in the doorway of my house on the day of a Munster [provincial] final, hoping somebody would take me with them,” he reminisced. 

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Stadium announcer Jerry Grogan has been the voice of Croke Park for 23 years. (Stephen McCarthy, Sportsfile via Getty Images)

He vividly remembers his first encounter with the stadium. In 1966, he snuck out of boarding school to see the All-Ireland final between his beloved Kerry and Galway. He rode an infamous train, which left his hometown of Cahersiveen at midnight and arrived in Dublin at 5 o’clock in the morning.

The journey was immortalized in “The Ghost Train to Croke Park,” a poem by Sigerson Clifford, who hailed from the same town as Grogan. 

“The craic and the banter, it was unbelievable. Even the preparation for it was an event in itself,” he said. “People would dress in their best clothes and bring bottles of porter, sandwiches and biscuits for the children. Someone might bring an accordion and they’d sing their way to Dublin.” 

Taking up his role with Cumann na Mbunscol a little over a decade later, Grogan has had a front-row seat to the changes that helped Croke Park become the fourth-largest stadium in Europe. Hailing from Kerry, the most successful football county in the nation, you might think he’d take exception to Dublin’s 2011 win and Mayo’s 2026 victory over “The Royal County” being two of the most cited over the last two decades. 

Instead, he celebrates the profound effect the triumphs had on the growth of the sport. 

“When I went into the school the following day and saw what it meant to the children in Dublin, any negative feeling disappeared,” he said of 2011. “They hadn’t won it since 1995. No child in a primary school had seen the Sam Maguire brought into their school. After that, there was so much interest in the game.”

As for Mayo’s win in July: “It was like a religious experience. Grown men and women bawling their eyes out. 1951 was the last year they won it and that was the year I was born.”

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July 26, 2026; Mayo captain Jack Coyne lifts the Sam Maguire Cup inside Croke Park in Dublin. (Piaras Ó Mídheach, Sportsfile via Getty Images)

For Grogan, seeing kids take their first steps in the game and emerging as legends decades later is one of the most rewarding things about his pursuit. He had a full circle moment in July when he saw newly minted All-Ireland champion Diarmuid O’Connor celebrating his victory over Kerry.

“He told me his two greatest sporting moments were that day in 2007 when he played the Cumann na mBunscol mini-sevens in Croke Park,” he said, “and the other one is when he went up the steps to lift the Sam Maguire as an All-Ireland champion.”

Grogan hasn’t forgotten where he came from. He’s still that same child hoping someone will pluck him from his doorway to bring him to see Kerry play.

“After the big games I’d often give a hand at the press conferences. After everything is finished and the stadium is nearly empty, sometimes I’ll go and sit in the stands. It’s like I have the place to myself. It’s hard to believe to me. I’ve been part of this my whole life and I’ve ended up in this privileged position. I never take it for granted.” 

After almost 50 years inside the GAA, what does Croke Park mean to him?

He paused for a moment, repeating the question as if it was never asked of him before. 

The Irish knew exactly what Katie Taylor meant when she insisted “it’s Croke Park or nothing for me.” 

Having given so much to her country in her 30 years in the ring, in a way, it feels like this moment is Ireland’s gift to Taylor. 

In victory or defeat, Saturday night will be the last time Ireland gets to roar in support of arguably the greatest athlete to ever hoist the tricolor. It needed to be here. Croke Park has a unique way of absorbing those who triumph within its walls. Their memories become part of the place itself. 

Taylor’s boxing legacy is set in stone, but on Saturday she will leave something behind in a place where the past lives forever. 

The venue promises that this won’t be a final farewell. 

She won’t haunt, but she’ll hover, awaiting the birth of Croke Park’s next sporting legend.