Katie Taylor Announced As 'Sportswoman Of The Month'

Katie Taylor has been announced as The Irish Times Irish Sports Council Sportswoman of the Month for June 2015 following her 18th consecutive title win at the European Games in Baku.

Taylor declared that, as time goes by, she gets "hungrier for medals". Despite all her success, then, the desire for even more is greater than ever.

In Baku, after beating Estelle Mossely from France in the lightweight final, and having had a semi-final scare when she got through on a split decision over Azerbaijan's Yana Alekseevna, Taylor is now, all at the same time, Olympic, World, European and European Games champion, collecting every major title there is to be won.

"I want to go down in the history books as the greatest female boxer of all time," she said after her Baku triumph, "I think I'm on the right path."

That she most certainly is. And to add to all those medals, the four-times Irish Times Sportswoman of the Year (2007, 2008, 2012 and 2014) now wins her 10th monthly award - spare a thought for her mantelpiece.

Previous monthly winners (awards run from December 2014 to November 2015, inclusive).

December 2014: Ann Marie McGlynn (Athletics). The Offaly woman captained the Irish senior women's team to an unlikely bronze medal at the European Cross-Country Championships in Bulgaria, combining with Fionnuala Britton, Sara Treacy and Michelle Finn to beat France by a point to a place on the podium.

January 2015: Grلinne Dwyer (Basketball). For the second year running, Dwyer was the MVP in the National Cup final, this time driving Team Montenotte, Glanmire to success over Killester, top-scoring in the game with 20 points.

February 2015: Sophie Spence (Rugby). The driving force behind Ireland's Six Nations victories over Italy and England, the 28-year-old lock going on to play an equally influential role in the victories over Wales and Scotland that clinched the team's second title in three years.

March 2015: Niamh Briggs (Rugby). The Irish captain led the team to a memorable Six Nations success, one that included only their second ever victory over world champions England. Briggs marked her 50th cap by contributing 23 of Ireland's 73 points in the mauling of Scotland that sealed the title.

April 2015: Katie Walsh (Horse racing). The Kildare jockey became only the third woman, after Ann Ferris in 1984 and her sister-in-law Nina Carberry in 2011, to win the Irish Grand National, riding the Sandra Hughes-trained Thunder And Roses to victory at Fairyhouse.

May 2015: Leona Maguire (Golf) and Madeline Perry (Squash). Maguire, a student at Duke University in North Carolina with her twin sister Lisa, reached the top of the world amateur rankings after three tournament wins in her first season in the United States, and was voted top female U.S. collegiate golfer of the year. And last weekend she finished runner-up at the European Masters where she was up against the best of the sport's professionals. Fellow Ulsterwoman Perry, meanwhile, called time on a professional squash career that began 16 years ago and saw her reach the heights of the third ranked squash player in the world. She signed off in style, winning the Irish Open and helping Ireland win bronze at the European Championships in Denmark.