SHANE McGRATH:  Katie Taylor or Rory McIlroy? Kate O’Connor or Katie McCabe? Here’s my top ten Irish sports stars. And because no other nation takes their heroes to their hearts like we do, I know you’ll disagree with one MASSIVE call

Popularity is easily recognised but measuring it is a trickier business. Were you to gauge Ireland’s most popular sporting figure by social media reach, Conor McGregor would be the clear winner.

His Instagram following alone is a mind-bogging 46.6 million; Katie Taylor’s barely registers at 682,000 by comparison. And Kate O’Connor, the most renowned athlete in the country after her heroics at the European Championships, has a following of 84,000.

Emotion and instinct are more reliable indicators, however, and by that measure Taylor remains the undisputed No1 – a status that will surely only harden next week with her landmark Croke Park goodbye.

This list is the classic moment in time, capturing breakthrough stars like Kate O’Connor along-side enduring favourites like Taylor and Rory McIlroy.

Compiling this top 10 last January or come December would see some different names included, which testifies to the fleeting fortunes that are the lot of many sportspeople.

But the transformation of the Irish Olympic story hinges on two legendary figures not currently in action, but included in our list because of their status and the fact that this time next year, they will be headline figures in the rolling story of qualification attempts for the LA Games.

Paul O’Donovan’s medical career is keeping him off the water for 2026, but he is Ireland’s greatest Olympian and there’s a good case he’s the country’s greatest sports person. Kellie Harrington would also figure in any discussion around Olympic greatness, and last week reiterated her desire to compete in Los Angeles.

Struggle is often the precursor to greatness in sport, and the athletes on our list have all been defined by struggle at some point in their careers.

It helps explain their greatness, and why the Irish public love them in a way that no algorithm can properly capture.

1 Katie Taylor

There have been times when it looked like she would be denied her fairytale. The memory of her distraught in Rio as her Olympic dream came apart a decade ago is burned into the collective memory of Irish sports lovers.

The switch to the pro game looked an improbable effort to reboot her career, but it’s worked beyond all expectations.

Not only has she starred in the ring, but her position as a uniquely adored figure in Irish public life has endured, too – and that’s despite her move to the US to live and train.

But, even with that, some of us wondered if she could sell out Croke Park for next Saturday’s fight against Flora Pili – not least because of her promoter’s attempts to spread the cost burden to unfeasible lengths.

Oh, we of little faith: the bout sold out in minutes. The perfect ending awaits a star like no other.

2 Kate O’Connor

The Louth woman’s image is adorning posters now, proof of her commercial appeal but also illustrative of how her achievements have cut through with the general public.

At the National Aquatic Centre earlier this week, harassed parents were shepherding kids in and out of the pool, burning off energy before the return to school.

A large poster of O’Connor stood near the exits and children excitedly recognised her. They’d been watching her star in an event that most of us knew only as one of those curiously intense Olympic events that athletes from other counties compete in.

No longer. O’Connor is now an international force in the heptathlon, and the Irish public have a greater appreciation of the exhausting demands made by the discipline. Her success, but also her attitude and vibrant personality, are turning her into our latest icon.

And close watchers of the sport reckon that the best should be yet to come.

3 Kobe McDonald

Even allowing for the tribal discernments that dictate who gets cheered in Gaelic games, McDonald had a summer like few others in sport have ever enjoyed.

Mayo ending their 75-year wait for the Sam Maguire had a national reach, making good the old throwaway line that 30 other counties cheer for the underdog.

That was really the case in last month’s football decider, and it is the story of the 18-year-old wunderkind, who combined completing his Leaving Cert with leading Mayo out of a disastrous championship start to ultimate glory on the steps of the Hogan Stand, which resonated most powerfully.

That he did all this with a pending move to Aussie Rules football hanging over him only lent another layer of meaning to the tale.

He conducted himself impeccably – which strengthened the feeling that Mayo are losing a singular young man. But the memories will last many lifetimes.

4 Rhasidat Adeleke

What’s going on? That was the question that pursued Rhasidat Adeleke more stubbornly than any rival for much of 2026.

She went into the Paris Olympics as a growing name in Irish sport; by the end of the Games, her fame went well beyond Ireland.

But, since then, her career has been beset by challenges that are a routine part of an athlete’s life.

Injury has plagued her, especially this year when a succession of hamstring injuries left her looking and sounding demoralised.

Then came a two-week stint at the Sport Ireland Institute before the European Championships, which brought vast improvements in body and mind.

The result of that was a stunning silver in the 200m, but also a reminder of her uncommon talent.

And the reaction to it showed just how popular she remains with the Irish public, savouring the country’s first global sprint star.

5 Troy Parrott

Many heads nodded sagely when it was announced that Troy Parrott was leaving AZ Alkmaar not for a team in England, but Real Betis in La Liga.

This, the consensus went, was a smart move, bringing the Dubliner to a Champions League club, but one for whom he should be good enough to start in the games that matter. Yet, it’s also a big gamble as it involves Parrott moving from the Dutch league to the more superior Spanish one.

Step-ups like that always involve risk, and the standard that Parrott will face in La Liga every week will test him.

The flipside to that is a player coming off the season of his life, domestically but more importantly on the international stage.

His heroics in green against Portugal and Hungary across four unforgettable days last November made the national team feel vital and a focus of national joy for the first time in years.

6 Paul O’Donovan

As colleagues emptied themselves at the World Rowing championships in Amsterdam this week, Paul O’Donovan was in the quieter surrounds of lecture halls and research labs, the Skibbereen rower continuing his medical career as planned. The way in which he has combined pursuit of one of the most gruelling career choices with a second life as a world-class athlete is remarkable.

This isn’t the first time he has come off the water to devote himself to medicine, but the circumstances in which he is doing so this time are very different.

For when he returns next year, O’Donovan will do so as a heavyweight rower. His Olympic glories all came as a lightweight, but that category is now gone from the Olympics.

That’s why Fintan McCarthy has been competing in Amsterdam at the heavier weight, and O’Donovan will do likewise next year.

He is out of public sight for now, but his status as our greatest Olympian remains undimmed.

7 Kellie Harrington

The veteran Dubliner is another Olympian who is mostly out of the headlines now.

Harrington filled them just under a year ago when she came out of retirement last October, and from the outset it was obvious that LA was somewhere on her radar.

Not that she admitted as much; she was adamant when revealing news of her return that it wasn’t with a tilt at another Olympic medal in mind.

But then last week she conceded that she will ‘have a go’ at making the plane to LA in 2028. She will be 38, and only five months away from her 39th birthday.

Boxing is the most unforgiving of all the Olympic sports, the one where vulnerability is most brutally laid bare.

Harrington could have contented herself with admiring her two Olympic golds, but by returning she emphasised one of her most appealing traits for a public that adore her: that determination to go again, to battle for her dream.

8 Shane Lowry

WITH more than $30million in career earnings, and his legend long since assured, Shane Lowry remains a study in agony.

That has certainly been the form presented to the world for most of a trying 2026, in which he was winless on the PGA tour, and his world rankings has slipped to 53rd.

Sunday after Sunday – and plenty of Fridays, too – have seen Lowry rubbing his head in frustration, reduced to exasperation by the game that defines him.

A slide down the rankings could cost him his place in the game’s most prestigious events in 2027, and the closing weeks of the season will only see his angst increase.

When Lowry is under pressure, there is no po-faced internalising of stress. This is a man that wears his burden like chainmail.

And that explains part of his enormous attraction for a public that took him to their hearts following his brilliant Irish Open win in 2009.

It helps that, while he lives what seems the typical life of a millionaire golfer in the exclusive Florida town of Jupiter, Lowry is also at home in Tullamore roaring on an Offaly team.

9 Katie McCabe

While her words suggested someone choosing what she said with great care, given the sensitivities involved, there was also the characteristic Katie McCabe confidence discernible when she gave an exclusive interview in these pages this week.

Some Arsenal fans cut up their jerseys when her move to Chelsea was announced, but McCabe didn’t sound like someone cowed by a few online reactionaries.

Confidence has been one of the defining features of this woman’s career, one that saw her win seven trophies in a decade at Arsenal.

Like many outstanding women in sport, her backstory contains plenty of challenges, but the way she overcame them to become not only a star in England, but the figurehead of a national women’s team that has become big news, speaks to a self-belief that is evident every time she takes to the pitch.

No player is more popular with the screaming fans attracted in ever-growing numbers to Ireland matches and, with World Cup play-offs imminent, her standing here will only grow.

10 Rory McIlroy

Along with O’Donovan, Taylor and Harrington, McIlroy is someone on this list with a good claim on being Ireland’s most successful international sporting figure. Yet, it’s complicated, too.

His relationship with Ireland has been a seesawing one, as he equivocated between representing the country or not at the Olympics.

There has also been wildly disproportionate criticism of him for missing Irish Opens.

When it came to McIlroy, different standards were applied.

And the way he spoke with such rare and commendable honesty didn’t always help him, either.

He was a man who talked about feeling conflicted on different issues, and this was invariably seized upon by his critics.

McIlroy is a compelling figure for that reason alone, without even considering his brilliance as a golfer – his legendary status sealed last April when he defended his Masters title.