Colin Sheridan: Conor McGregor’s political play risks mainstreaming far-right talking points
In his run for a presidential nomination Conor McGregor (pictured here outside the High Court in November 2024 for a personal injury case against him) doesn’t see embarrassment; he sees destiny. File photo: Brian Lawless/PA
There was a time when Conor McGregor’s antics were at least confined to the Octagon. The worst you could say was that he was brash, loud, and fond of showing us his watch collection. He was a circus act, and every circus needs a clown.
Lately, however, the Notorious one has wandered out of the cage and into the colosseum of politics - specifically, a pseudo-run for the Irish presidency. If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a man with a criminal rap sheet and a motivational speaker’s Instagram tried to rebrand as the Father of the Nation, wonder no more.
The presidency is supposed to be Ireland’s most dignified office. Mary Robinson didn’t break ceilings so that a man who once punched an old lad in a pub could smash through the door with a designer tracksuit.
Mary McAleese didn’t spend years as a thoughtful, articulate president so that McGregor could lumber in with all the subtlety of a stag party in Lanzarote. Michael D. Higgins didn’t dedicate his presidency to poetry and pluralism so that McGregor could follow up with protein shakes and poorly-spelled tweets.
But McGregor doesn’t see embarrassment; he sees destiny. The problem isn’t just that he’s unserious. It’s that he’s dangerous. McGregor has become a talisman for the most unsavoury corners of modern discourse: incels, keyboard misogynists, and the international collection of hard-right grifters who see in him a swaggering avatar for their resentments.
The irony of a man who once marketed himself as “Ireland’s pride” is now functioning as Ireland’s most embarrassing export. Guinness, Riverdance, and now a UFC has-been cosplaying as Charles de Gaulle.
When Donald Trump sits him down in the Oval Office, drapes a green tie around his neck, and beams like he’s found a long-lost son, you can almost hear the dog whistles. Ireland was mortified; McGregor’s online fanboys were electrified.
That photo was an endorsement, a benediction, a pat on the head from the international godfather of grievance politics. McGregor seemed to lap it up. And why wouldn’t he? He and Trump share an instinctive grasp of how notoriety can be marketed as authenticity.
And then there’s Elon Musk, that tech-bro Zeus, hurling down retweets like lightning bolts, amplifying McGregor’s pseudo-campaign as though the fate of Western civilisation depends on a man in a Gucci tracksuit shouting at pigeons outside the Four Courts.
It’s not as though the man is short on baggage either. This is a candidate whose extracurricular CV includes: A civil finding of liability for raping a woman in a Dublin hotel - for which he paid damages of €250,000. Accusations of sexual assault in a Miami arena bathroom during the NBA Finals.
Multiple incidents of assault - from an accusation of smashing a fan’s phone that was later withdrawn, to flooring a pensioner for refusing a whiskey. A social media record of incitement, such as calling for torture in the aftermath of the Dublin stabbings.
Add it up, and you have a picture less of a president, more of a pub bore who should have been shown the door years ago.
And yet, he insists the people are with him. He claims to have secured the necessary Oireachtas endorsements to get on the ballot, though no one has seen them.
The only thing secured at present seems to be his delusions. Political insiders call his chances “exceedingly unlikely,” but in an era where Trump once became the leader of the free world, “unlikely” has a bad habit of ageing badly.
Which leaves Ireland in a peculiar bind. On one hand, we can dismiss the whole spectacle as pantomime. On the other, we must admit the corrosive power of what he represents. McGregor’s campaign - real, fake, or delusional - is less about Áras an Uachtaráin and more about mainstreaming the far-right’s talking points under the banner of national pride.
It is perhaps the cruellest twist of all that he was once genuinely admired by many. His rise in the UFC was meteoric, a story that lit up the Irish imagination: the Crumlin lad made good, a working-class hero with the gift of the gab and the fists to match.
For a brief moment, he was a symbol of Ireland on the up - brash, global, unafraid. That pride has curdled. Today, he is a punchline at home and a totem abroad, adored not for victories but for vitriol.
And yet, people are watching. Not because they believe he could actually become president - but because they know his presence in the race is a performance in itself. He is the disruption candidate, the chaos candidate, the candidate who has mistaken notoriety for nobility.
So let’s be clear: the presidency of Ireland does not need a man who thinks a Trump selfie is a mandate. It does not need a candidate who carries the endorsement of internet misogynists like a badge of honour. It does not need a man who sees the office as the ultimate cage fight.
What it needs is exactly what McGregor cannot provide: dignity, steadiness, and the sense that the officeholder might be someone we’d actually trust with a ceremonial handshake.
McGregor’s pseudo-campaign will pass, like all cheap stunts do. But the damage he leaves behind - the legitimising of fringe grievances, the courting of international demagogues, the transformation of our presidency into a circus ring - will take longer to shake off.
And if you’re wondering how Irish people feel about it? It’s simple. Embarrassed. The way you feel when a drunk uncle insists on singing at a wedding. Except in this case, the uncle has millions of followers, a history of violence, and the backing of Donald Trump.
God help us all.
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