Opinion - Erin go MAGA: Conor McGregor wants to be president of Ireland

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5 days ago

Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland in 1649 to bring the 'judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches.' Tucker Carlson's objective was ostensibly less destructive — he claimed that he came to Ireland in mid-April only to learn. In truth, it was mischief that brought Carlson to Dublin for an interview with a cage fighter with deluded political aspirations.
Just after St. Patrick's Day, Conor McGregor launched his campaign to be Irish president in the White House press briefing room. Joe Rogan describes the former UFC champ as the best trash-talker of all time, but McGregor had clearly lost his trademark wit as he tried to explain how Ireland's social problems are self-inflicted.
It was equally clear why President Trump loaned him the bully pulpit during his visit to the U.S. For American culture warriors, Ireland is a favorite rhetorical prop. McGregor's claims that the country was being ruined by an 'illegal immigration racket' permitted by a political establishment with 'zero accountability' harmonized with MAGA themes.
McGregor likely knew he was being manipulated. Whatever else, he's no fool. With several assault charges under his belt, his nickname 'Notorious' is now a grim statement of fact. But, if his glories in the octagon are behind him, the Dubliner has made fame pay. In 2017, he earned $130 million for fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr.
His matchup with Carlson was another overpromoted spectacle, painful to watch. Just as Mayweather carried the exhausted cage fighter through 10 rounds, Carlson struggled to elicit a coherent message. 'So, you have said immigration is treason,' Carlson leadingly queried his guest.
Malapropisms tripped over solecisms, with McGregor sounding like a Celtic Idi Amin. 'You ask about my political aspirations,' he said. 'I am of the belief that the era of the politician must end. It must come to an end. It has proven unfruitful.' In a final paranoid touch, the interview took place in a Masonic temple.
After the circus folded up its tent, all that's left for Ireland's embattled conservatives is a mess.Ireland, unlike many European countries, has no large right-leaning party advocating greater immigration controls. In the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition, Ireland has a center-left consensus with a firm grip on power. The opposition, Sinn Féin, criticizes the government's 'chaotic mismanagement' of immigration but lacks any serious plans to lower overall numbers.
Unfortunately, some of the issues McGregor struggled to articulate are real. In 2023, 22 percent of Ireland's population was foreign-born. Only Cyprus and Malta have comparable rates in Europe.
The 150,000 people that migrated to Ireland in 2024 are small beer by American standards, but plenty for a country of just 5.3 million. If Irish elites are insulated from negative effects of this influx, the wider population is less complacent.
A 2024 Irish Times poll found that 59 percent of respondents wanted a more closed immigration policy. But that doesn't mean they want a president who traffics in conspiracies like Renaud Camus's Great Replacement theory. 'It's an attempted erasure of our people' McGregor told Carlson.
The truth is more banal. There is no plan. Ireland is doing what it always does: copying Britain. During New Labour's rule from 1997 to 2010, annual net U.K. migration averaged 200,000. Prime Minister Tony Blair mocked working-class party members anxious about adding 2.5 million foreigners to the workforce, arguing that globalization was unstoppable. 'You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer,' Blair said in 2005.
Absent that flood, Brexit is impossible to understand, as are the 2024 anti-migrant Southport riots, which started after natural-born Briton of Rwandan ancestry, falsely reported to be a migrant, stabbed three schoolchildren to death. Prime Minister Keir Starmer was as contemptuous as Blair when he called the rioters 'a tiny, mindless minority in our society.'
Similar disdain was heard in 2023 from Ireland's police chief when he blamed 'a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology' for the looting, arson and violence that cost millions in property damage in Dublin. That riot was triggered by an naturalized Irish citizen from Algeria stabbing a five-year-old girl in a city school.
Imagine, then, the relief of Ireland's ruling class to hear this intractable subject discussed by a washed-up palooka and an American firebrand. A gratified media had a field day 'fact checking' last month's interview. If McGregor didn't exist, the establishment would have to invent him. Those who share his concerns are effectively locked out of the political system, limited to noisy protests and occasional violence that is less easy to ignore.
In Britain, where similar factors exist at scale, the results may be more explosive. David Betz, a professor of war at King's College London, predicts anarchy in the U.K. 'There has been a collapse in trust over the course of a generation,' he has said. Native discontent with 'a two-tier justice system' and a 'politically biased' police establishment exacerbate tensions. And since Westminster would have to take responsibility for the problem in order to fix it, Betz sees no democratic solution.
This powder keg just needs a spark. Any Irish nationalists smirking at the thought of our ancestral enemy going up in smoke should remember that disorder spreads fast. The last time civil war came to Britain, Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland.
Aidan Harte is a sculptor and writer based in Ireland.
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