The Bray woman is a private person and has kept her guard up when it comes to her personal life.
13:15, 28 Nov 2025
Katie Taylor celebrates with family in her dressing room after defeating Amanda Serrano(Image: Noam Galai/Getty Images for Netflix)
Boxing superstar Katie Taylor has always kept a low public profile away from the ring.
Although one of the most entertaining and passionate fighters in the ring, the Bray woman is a private person and has kept her guard up when it comes to her personal life.
It came as a surprise to many, in this light, when it was revealed earlier this year that the boxing supremo had tied the knot with an American real estate broker.
The 39-year-old went public with her husband, Sean McCavanagh, 47, in September when the pair visited a rehabilitation centre in Katie’s home county of Wicklow.
Asked at the time about how he feels being married to Taylor, McCavanagh told the Sunday World: “It’s the best ever, she’s the best!”
Katie Taylor with her husband Sean (wearing cap), mother Bridget and Senator Aubrey McCarthy
And when asked how he enjoyed his few days in Ireland, he replied “How could you not?” he said. “I loved my time in Ireland, I’m home now.”
Taylor is now the stepmother to five children, with her husband the father to two sons and three daughters, who range in age from 11 to 23.
Sean’s former wife, Alicia – the mother to his five children – passed away suddenly in October 2023 when just 43.
Bray woman Katie attended the same church as Sean, Alicia and their children, and holidayed with the family in Boston four years ago, where they attended a baseball game. Sean and Alicia also attended Katie’s fights in 2017, as did several members of their families.
Taylor moved to Vernon, Connecticut, in September 2016, a small town around 150km outside Boston. And it is likely that she first met real estate agent Sean, Alicia and their family through her Pentecostal Church in the area.
Katie Taylor in Vernon, Connecticut(Image: Instagram/katie_t86)
The church’s website reports that it “began as a small Bible Study in Rockville, CT in 1985 after the Lord called Pastor Ramond ‘Flick’ Grezel and his wife Susan to ministry here.
“With much prayer and going door to door, the community quickly responded to Flick’s teaching in God’s word and many people were saved.”
“Today the Church continues to focus on reaching people in the community who are outside the typical church circles.”
Along with her family in Connecticut, Taylor has also reconciled with her father Pete in recent years.
Pete had been at her daughter’s side as she rose through the amateur ranks, training her to win gold at the London Olympics in 2012.
But Katie removed her father from her coaching team ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics after a family rift.
Katie Taylor and Pete Taylor.(Image: Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Gary Carr)
Pete told James English on his podcast ‘Anything Goes’: “I split with Katie’s ma two years, maybe a year after the Olympics. “Katie’s really into her faith as well and I just remember Katie coming down to the boxing club and she says, ‘I just don’t want you in the corner, you and ma are not together’.
“I’m married now to Karen, and Karen’s the same age as Katie and everybody was saying Pete’s turned around for Katie’s best friend, but they didn’t even know each other.
“In social media and in the papers it was, ‘Katie Taylor’s best friend’. For me it’s an insult, it sounds like ‘Katie’s been best friends with this girl since her childhood, you’ve bleedin’ groomed her’. But she didn’t know her, but that grows legs then. Just rumours and rumours and rumours.
“She has such morals, she has such faith and thinks that when you’re married you should be together for life. It killed me now, but I had to respect it because she did a documentary after and said, ‘when I went training it was like I was fighting with only one hand because my da wasn’t there’. She knew what the consequences would be, she lost in the Olympics in 2016 in Rio.”
Pete explained that it was a tough time and claimed he had been portrayed as a villain by the Irish media. “We weren’t really speaking,” he said of his relationship with Katie around the Rio Games. “It was tough for both of us but that’s life.
“Because we were always together it was a big thing in the newspapers, you’d think I was the only person who ever split up a marriage and when Katie got beaten I was painted as the villain. It made me a pure villain in Ireland but that’s life, they used to make up stories about me on a bad news day. It was tough at the time.”
He also described the build-up and contests at London 2012 as a very pressurised time. “She’s not lost in 17 major competitions or something, and if we silver medal it would have been a disappointment for everybody in Ireland, and Ireland was going through a bad time,” he recalled.
“There was the financial crash in Ireland and everybody was depressed and I felt the hopes of Ireland were on the shoulders of the two of us. And there’s banners all over Dublin saying Katie Taylor, gold medal London, she’ll win a gold medal. Jesus, some pressure it was.
“It was not enjoyable. The Olympics was not one bit enjoyable – it was just pressure. You know, even after Katie won the goal, for me, it was just relief.”
Katie Taylor and her mother Bridget(Image: katie_t86/Instagram)
Katie and her father have since patched things up, though, with Peter helping her daughter to train for some of her recent megafights.
The boxer is very close to her mother Bridget and her siblings, brothers Pete and Lee, and sister Sarah. Bridget was Ireland’s first-ever female boxing judge and has attended all of her daughter’s professional fights.
“I come from a long line of strong women,” Katie has said. “My mother is a powerhouse. She is a true Proverbs 31 kind of woman and the most amazing example for me. She’s the greatest.”
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