The Islamophobic MMA star and former UFC champion Conor McGregor has said that he will not run in Ireland’s forthcoming presidential election amid speculation that he lacked support to gain a nomination.
“Following careful reflection, and after consulting with my family, I am withdrawing my candidacy from this presidential race. This was not an easy decision, but it is the right one at this moment in time,” McGregor wrote on X.
He had announced in March his intention to run for the Irish presidency, pledging to challenge the government’s stance on the EU Migration Pact and advocating for a public referendum on the issue.
The Irish presidency is a largely symbolic, seven-year post but McGregor had vowed to curb immigration in order to shore up “Irish culture” and to give power “back to the people”.
He had hoped to leverage his social media following and the backing of Elon Musk and tacit support of Donald Trump to get on the ballot for the election on October 24.
“This campaign has sparked an important conversation about democracy in Ireland about who gets to stand, who gets to choose, and how we can ensure that the presidency truly belongs to the people. That conversation will not end with my withdrawal,” he added.
McGregor had faced an uphill battle to get on the ballot – a candidate must be nominated either by 20 members of parliament or four local authorities – and said the process was “fixed” in favour of establishment candidates.
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He had been due to address several councils this week, along with other independent hopefuls, but analysts said the chances of winning any endorsements were slender.
Opinion polls also showed scant popular support for McGregor – just 7% of voters in one survey.
In a civil lawsuit brought by Nikita Hand, who accused him of raping and battering her in a Dublin hotel in December 2018, a High Court jury in November 2024 found him civilly liable for assault (which encompassed the alleged sexual assault). He was ordered to pay approximately €248,000 in damages to Hand and about €1.3 million in her legal costs.
McGregor denied the allegations, claiming the encounter was consensual, and appealed the ruling. On July 31, 2025, Ireland’s Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on all grounds, upholding the jury’s decision. Hand has since indicated she plans to sue McGregor and others involved in the appeal for alleged malicious abuse of court processes.
Islamophobic rhetoric
During the campaign, Conor McGregor positioned himself as an independent, anti-establishment candidate focused on restoring power to the people, halting what he described as an “illegal immigration racket,” and protecting Ireland’s indigenous identity.
McGregor repeatedly warned that Ireland was “on the cusp of losing its Irishness” due to unchecked migration, which he called an “invasion,” “ethnocide,” and “breach of the UN Charter on Indigenous People.”
On September 8, he said on X: “The asylum scam brings in those who demand Sharia-like systems, not integration. I’ll close Treasure Ireland and send billions back to Irish taxpayers, not foreigners who reject our ways.”
The Immigrant Council of Ireland called this comment “blatantly Islamophobic,” noting Ireland’s Muslim population (under 2% of 5.3 million) shows no evidence of widespread Shariah advocacy. The statement was seen as generalising Muslims as unintegratable.
Before the campaign his anti-Muslim rhetoric was frequently highlighted.
In June 2023, he said on X: “Ireland is under attack from foreign ideologies that don’t belong here. We won’t let our streets become like those Sharia zones in Europe.”
Posted during anti-immigrant riots in Dublin, McGregor’s reference to “Sharia zones” echoed debunked far-right myths about Muslim-controlled areas in Europe.
Conor McGregor’s March 2019 mugshot, after being detained by police in Miami Beach, Florida.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties called it “dangerously Islamophobic,” noting it inflamed tensions against Ireland’s Muslim community. The post was deleted after backlash but was widely screenshotted.
After losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018, McGregor called him a “mad backwards c*nt” and said, “I’m not surprised [by the brawl], it’s a dirty team from a dirty part of the world.”
McGregor’s remarks targeted a Muslim from Dagestan, and his team, with “dirty part of the world” widely interpreted as a slur against Muslim-majority regions.
The Irish Times and MMA media criticized this as Islamophobic, noting McGregor’s pattern of invoking Nurmagomedov’s faith (e.g., mocking his fasting during Ramadan in earlier trash talk).
During a press conference, McGregor taunted Khabib Nurmagomedov, saying, “Go back to your desert and pray to your god five times a day, you backward f*ck.”
This direct jab at Nurmagomedov’s Islamic practice of daily prayers was condemned by the Muslim Public Affairs Council as “crude Islamophobia,” arguing it stereotyped Muslims as primitive.
McGregor’s comments, reported by ESPN, were seen as leveraging anti-Muslim tropes for fight hype, escalating tensions that later led to the UFC 229 brawl.
Irish media and groups like the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission consistently flagged these statements for promoting anti-Muslim stereotypes, often citing their potential to incite discrimination.
McGregor has claimed his remarks were either fight promotion (pre-2025) or “truth about integration” (2023-2025), not anti-Muslim, but critics argue the specificity of terms like “Shariah” and “desert” betrays a targeted bias.
