Offaly boxing coach WhatsApps Katie Taylor after missing out on Croke Park fight tickets
Offaly boxing club ‘Home to Female Boxing’ reaches out to Katie Taylor for sold-out Croke Park fight
An Offaly boxing coach has reached out to Katie Taylor in the hopes of securing tickets for her highly anticipated fight in Croke Park.
Katie Taylor will fight Flora Pili on September 5, 2026, in Dublin’s 80,000-seat stadium, marking the first professional boxing event there since Muhammad Ali fought Alvin Lewis in 1972.
The event sold out in just minutes with thousands of people left frustrated across the country, including Offaly boxing club - St Brigid’s Boxing Club.
Boxing coach, Liam Brereton, has coached in the club in Edenderry for over 13 years and has been a coach all of his life. He comes from a family of boxers and took on the club after his father.
Liam said, in an exclusive interview with the Offaly Express, that the club now is “totally modernised” and they have two boxing ring and a strength and conditioning gym.
“We actually have cameras on each ring to keep an eye on all the sparring. We can accommodate 28 athletes on site with our accommodation area upstairs. It's probably one of the best clubs in the country, facility-wise.
“Success-wise, we have trained Irish champions from 11 years right up to Elite, the European medalist continent. We are unofficially known as the home of female boxing.
“We'd have a lot more females than we would actually have males.”
Liam said that this is because when he came back from his travels and took over the club in 2012, he “saw the problem that females were having in boxing and were being left behind.
“I just took an interest in female boxing internationally with the Irish team as well. We kind of worked at it. We pledged the poor female card and it helped us get funding. We run a training camp where athletes, boxers from all over the world compete for international sparring.”
Liam said that for young girls thinking of joining the boxing club: “well, me personally as a coach, I don't want a female to come in and think they’re going to be Irish Champion in the morning. That doesn't bother me. The door's open. They're welcome to try. We encourage them to come and spend a couple of nights and see if they like it.
“We've one girl there just this year. I don't think she's actually got into the ring, but she trains and she does the bags and pads that she has. She enjoys it, you know what I mean?
“Boxing clubs, they're not like GAA clubs where you kind of have the one kind of set of people. Boxing clubs come from all different walks of life. You have your guy that's struggling in school to maybe your guy that's grade A on a piano.
“You have every sort of a kid in the boxing club. And when they come into a boxing club, everything outside is forgot about you. Boxing clubs, to me, are the heart of a lot of communities.
“It's an eye-opener for people when they come in that they actually see their kids mixing with kids that we wouldn't let them mix with outside the club. It's a family atmosphere in a boxing club.
“I do believe the kids support one another as well, even though it's an individual sport”.
Liam said that it would mean everything for the members of his club to get tickets to Katie Taylor’s sold out fight in September.
He reached out to her on social media and through WhatsApp to try and get tickets but had no luck.
In the post, Liam said: “I really thought there should of been tickets set aside for boxing clubs around Ireland clubs that have supported you through your journey. The first photo is EU Championship in Bulgaria 2013 and the last photo is New York last Summer.”
“I was just trying to gather maybe five or six tickets for some of the kids in the club that probably wouldn't have a way of getting them. No, we didn't get them in the end. Some of the kids got them alright, but we didn't get them in the end.
“I have a brother that's not involved in boxing and he got nine tickets. Did you ever come on to Ticketmaster for any concert where you could buy nine tickets? They panicked and they didn't think they were going to sell it out and they let people buy seven, eight, nine tickets. And that's what actually sold it.
“With everyone giving maybe four tickets max or something, a lot more people would have got tickets. But I personally blame myself, I actually didn't think she'd sell it.
“It would mean everything for the kids getting it. I think they'd want to go more than to a pop concert or a singer, I think.”