Conor McGregor, who has in recent years gone from brawling in the Ultimate Fighting Championship to fighting multiple allegations of sexual abuse, is now looking to enter the arena to be Ireland’s next President.
But the 37-year-old who has become a popular figure of the far-right, allying himself with U.S. President Donald Trump and promoting anti-immigration views to his more than 46 million followers on Instagram and 10 million followers on X, is running up against a Sept. 24 deadline to receive backing from at least 20 of 234 members of the Oireachtas (Ireland’s parliament) or four of 31 local authorities (county or city councils) in order to be nominated.
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McGregor posted on social media on Sept. 4 with a plea for his supporters to “contact your local county councillors today and ask them to nominate me.”
“We have seen the homelessness of Irish children risen to levels unprecedented, proving this Government’s refusal to abide by and respect our proclamation where all children of Ireland are to be cherished. Instead, our children abandoned,” McGregor said in a video as he stood in front of the gates of the Department of the Taoiseach in Dublin. “This incompetent failure of future generations has been accompanied with an intense influx of mass migration into an already severed system.”
“If you want to see my name on the ballot for the presidency, I urge you to contact your local county councillors today and ask them to nominate me,” McGregor wrote in the post. He called himself a “master of martial combat” and a “solution driven man.”
The Irish presidency is mostly ceremonial and is directly elected every seven years. Any citizen over the age of 35 can seek a nomination. There are only two confirmed candidates so far to succeed outgoing President Michael D. Higgins, a popular leftist who was first elected in 2011. Voters are set to go to the polls on Oct. 24.
From fighter to far-right figurehead
McGregor, one of the UFC’s most famous stars, became the first fighter to hold two of the championship’s belts simultaneously in November 2016 and holds a 22-6 career record. He was the world’s highest paid sports star in 2021. But he hasn’t fought in the UFC since then, after back-to-back defeats and mounting abuse allegations.
In December 2024, a Dublin jury found McGregor civilly liable for battery and assault and ordered him to pay nearly 250,000 euros in a civil lawsuit brought by Nikita Hand alleging that he and another man, James Lawrence, raped her in 2018. He appealed the verdict, but the appeal was dismissed in July 2025. In January 2024, another woman filed an ongoing civil lawsuit in Florida against McGregor alleging that he sexually assaulted her during the 2023 NBA finals. McGregor also pleaded guilty to assault for punching an elderly man in a pub in Dublin in 2019, and was banned from driving in Ireland for two years over six driving offences in 2022.
McGregor began publicly expressing anti-immigration and anti-asylum seeker views in 2022 after his career in fighting seemed to be receding and around the same time that far-right ethno-nationalism was rising in Ireland. He has repeatedly drawn on one of his UFC slogans, “If one of us goes to war, we all go to war,” in anti-immigration comments, including a Nov. 22, 2023, post that read, “Ireland, we are at war.” Members of the Irish far-right have promoted McGregor as a face of their movement.
“When he first came to prominence in 2012, he got attention by acting like a clown—and people received him well,” sports journalist Ewan MacKenna, who wrote the book, “Chaos is a Friend of Mine: The Life and Crimes of Conor McGregor,” told CNN last year. “He will become whatever the crowd wants him to be and he molds himself into whatever brings him the most attention, and with politics, it would be similar.”
McGregor first announced his presidential bid in March after meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on St. Patrick’s Day.
McGregor’s bid for presidency hits roadblock
“Ireland is at the cusp of potentially losing its Irishness,” McGregor said at the meeting with Trump in March, claiming that Irish towns were overrun by migrants.
Immigration to Ireland has gone up over the years, with 149,200 people moving to Ireland in the year leading up to April 2024, a 17-year high. Emigration out of Ireland has also risen, and is a big part of Irish history and identity. An independent poll by Migrant Rights Centre Ireland last year found that a vast majority of the Irish public support welcoming policies to migrants. While some anti-immigration riots occurred in Ireland in 2023, observers said they represented the views of a minority, and housing and healthcare remain higher priorities for most ahead of this year’s election.
Irish leader Micheál Martin denounced McGregor’s comments at the White House, saying that they “did not reflect the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, or the views of the people of Ireland.”
As part of his campaign platform, McGregor has opposed a European Union migration pact that would more evenly distribute the processing of asylum seekers across the bloc.
“Who else will stand up to Government and oppose this bill?” he posted on X in March. “Any other Presidential candidate they attempt to put forward will be of no resistance to them. I will!”
But McGregor faces a steep challenge in making it onto the ballot. Many Irish lawmakers have criticized McGregor for his anti-immigrant stance and for the sexual assault allegations against him.
His eleventh hour appeal to his supporters struck a different tone from just a week earlier, when he posted on X: “I have it secured. I have councils on board. TD’s. Senators.”
In March, Sky News surveyed lawmakers, and of the 134 respondents, not a single Teachta Dála (member of the lower house) or senator said they would support or even maybe support McGregor’s nomination. Some wrote in responses calling him “a tacky, moronic vulgarian,” “a misogynist and a thug,” and “a populist buffoon.”
“I genuinely would struggle to think of anyone worse to hold that position,” said one senator.
The Irish Times found similar near-unanimous rejection in a survey of local councillors, too.