UFC superstar Conor McGregor has indicated he will look to run for president of the Republic of Ireland following a stabbing attack that prompted a spike in anti-migrant sentiment in the country.
"I listen. I support. I adapt," McGregor wrote on social media platform X. "I have no affiliation/bias/favoritism toward any party… I’d even put it all to vote. There’d be votes every week to make sure."
"It would not be me in power as President, people of Ireland," he promised. "It would be me and you."
McGregor flirted with the idea of a presidential bid in Ireland, noting that he would face off against three near-octogenarians and would stand instead as a "young, attractive, passionate" option with "fresh skin in the game."
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Ireland’s president is a directly elected head of state who has similar powers to the American president when it comes to signing or vetoing new laws, while the prime minister (also known as the Taoiseach) represents the majority party in parliament and proposes and shapes new legislation.
Elon Musk suggested the five-time world champ would beat all possible competitors "single-handed," adding the matchup was "not even fair."
McGregor responded that he would "fancy his chances" of a run while outlining the process for nomination as part of his bid for "absolute transparency and consultation to the public."
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"Currently, there is none," McGregor claimed. "Not an iota. False promises come around the time of election and then it is literally straight ignorance into the face thereafter. It’s disgusting."
He accused the major parties in Ireland’s government of focusing on power struggles instead of actually seeking change, arguing that if a "power swap" happened today, "the situation would simply reverse… the same question and requests and condemnations but only from the opposite side, then."
The former featherweight and lightweight champion promised that he’d "clean" the parliament out "if it meant our issues were heard and corrected… a true democracy!" He also slammed the government for "criminal" allocation of national funds "without an iota of consideration for what the public thinks."
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McGregor has been vocal about his desire to see immigration reform in his native country. He previously spoke out about the death of a 23-year-old Irish teacher and musician Ashling Murphy, who was killed in a stabbing in 2022.
He sparked controversy last month when he wrote on X, "Ireland, we are at war," following a series of stabbings in Dublin that injured five individuals, three of whom were children.
The attack, linked to an immigrant who had lived in Ireland for around two decades, sparked a violent riot in Dublin that forced the country’s Garda (national police) to intervene. McGregor had complained on X about the immigration policies in Ireland mere hours before the attack occurred.
Police last week found the message "Irish Lives Matter" scrawled in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as well as a sign posted saying one neighborhood would "no longer accept the rehousing of illegal immigrants." Both incidents are reportedly being investigated by local police as hate-related incidents.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has urged his people not to connect the stabbing with immigration, saying it is "not right," according to the BBC.
"I really would ask people to try and avoid connecting crime with migration," Varadkar told the Dail Eireann – the local name for parliament – saying that such connections are "not right" and influenced by "far right ideology."
"Yes, of course, people who are migrants might commit crimes, just as people who aren't commit crimes," Varadkar stressed, adding that there are "people born and bred in Ireland who commit terrible crimes every day, including murder."
