Taylor is through to tomorrow’s gold medal bout and will have a passionate following across Ireland, with the country gunning for a top podium spot for its 26-year-old boxing heroine.

However Taylor has been the centre of a non-boxing spat after Britain’s Daily Telegraph referred to the Irish fighter as ‘British’.

The blunder was soon picked up across Twitter with furious Irish making it clear that Katie Taylor is IRISH.
“Dear Daily Telegraph. Katie Taylor is IRISH. However, please feel free to claim Ronan Keating, Jedward, Louis Walsh…” tweeted Fergus Murphy.

“The Telegraph wonders, can anyone beat “Britain’s Katie Taylor”? They should ask Ireland’s Jess Ennis for comment,” said Kieran Healy.

While Dermot Cantillon ‏tweeted: “Well done Great Britain on your great Olympics but hands off KatieTaylor.”

Irish TV channel RTE presenter Ella McSweeney said: “Oh, come on! Daily Telegraph. Team GB losing the run of itself.”
The Telegraph has now apologised, tweeting: “We’re sorry for mistakenly describing the fantastic boxer KatieTaylor as British in our London 2012 section today. She is Irish, ofcourse.”

The Irish nation had more cause to get its hackles up today when Australian newspaper group Fairfax Media released an article that was published on the websites of Brisbane Times and the Sydney Morning Herald under the headline: “Punch Drunk: Ireland intoxicated as Taylor swings towards victory boxing gold.”

The article continued to compare Taylor’s boxing bout to the Irish’s supposed love of drinking.

“For centuries, Guinness and whiskey have sent the Irish off their heads. Now all it takes is a petite 26-year-old from Wicklow,” the offending article began.

The Irish Ambassador to Australia, Noel White, slammed the article, saying it lapsed into “lazy stereotyping”.
“References to intoxication and to named drinks are inappropriate and beneath the standard that one expects of Fairfax Media,” he said.

Peter Hanlon, the journalist who wrote the piece, has now apologised the headline has been changed.
For her part, Katie Taylor – who has been boxing since she was 11 – has remained focused on her London 2012 Olympics women’s boxing challenge, telling RTE: “I’m going to go all the way to the very top.”