February 15, 2026

Ireland Unrest

Conor McGregor - Wikipedia

Conor McGregor - Wikipedia

Conor McGregor ends his campaign to become Irish president– www.nydailynews.com
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MMA superstar Conor McGregor tapped out of Ireland’s presidential race.

“Following careful reflection, and after consulting with my family, I am withdrawing my candidacy from this presidential race,” the pugilist announced in a long message posted on X.

The mercurial 37-year-old fighter was considered a longshot to compete in the race he announced he was joining in March. McGregor faulted the Irish electoral process for being constrained by “the straitjacket of an outdated Constitution” that protects establishment candidates and works against populist outsiders like himself.

He said late Sunday he’s been in New York since Wednesday, when he crossed the Atlantic Ocean to commemorate the 9/11 terror attacks and plans to stay in the U.S., where he hopes to meet with the Trump administration to talk about Irish jobs.

Irish voters head to the ballot box to pick the island nation’s next president on Oct. 24. Polling showed McGregor was likely to finish with 7% of the popular vote, according to outlets including the Guardian.

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The Irish government is reportedly set to reject demands from the European Union to implement hate speech legislation after Dublin abandoned plans to do so last year.

In September of last year, the Irish government scrapped plans to criminalise so-called hate speech in its Criminal Justice Bill, which would have allowed the state to send someone to prison for up to five years for “incitement to hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics”.

The move to abandon the controversial section of the bill came as Justice Minister Helen McEntee admitted that it did “not have a consensus” among the Irish population.

In response, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, warned that Dublin may face legal action from Brussels for failing to meet the bloc’s stringent speech standards.

The commission said in May that Ireland “still fails to transpose the provisions related to criminalising the public incitement to violence or hatred against a group or a member of such group based on certain characteristics, as well as the conducts of condoning, denial and gross trivialisation of international crimes and the Holocaust”.