Conor McGregor is Dead Right about Immigration Destroying Ireland, By Richard Miller (Londonistan)
The first time I heard Conor McGregor speak about immigration, when I was in Ireland on business, I'll admit I raised an eyebrow. But the brash UFC fighter, known more for his knockouts than his political acumen, stood at the White House podium on St. Patrick's Day 2025, his voice cutting through the room like a jab to the chin. "Ireland is on the cusp of losing its Irishness," he declared, pointing to what he called an "illegal immigration racket" ravaging rural towns. A few days later, on March 20, he doubled down, announcing his run for Ireland's presidency on an anti-immigration platform, vowing to oppose the EU Migration Pact and give the Irish people a voice. The establishment scoffed—Irish leaders like Micheál Martin dismissed him, and pundits branded him a populist loudmouth. ButMcGregor, for all his bombast, is onto something real. Ireland's immigration crisis, and the quiet dispossession of its native white population, isn't just a fighter's rant—it's a warning rooted in a shifting reality.
Picture Ireland as it's long been known: rolling green hills, tight-knit villages, a land where the Irish—mostly white, Gaelic-rooted people—have lived for millennia. That's the Ireland my grandparents told me about, a place of fierce pride and stubborn resilience. Now imagine those rural towns McGregor mentioned—places like Ballaghaderreen or Dundalk—where, almost overnight, the faces on the streets don't look like they used to. He's not wrong to say some have been "overrun in one swoop." The Central Statistics Office pegs non-Irish citizens at 632,000 in 2022, 12 percent of the population, up from 11 percent in 2016. That's a jump of tens of thousands in a nation of just over 5 million, and it's not slowing—Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers have poured in since. Official numbers don't capture the full story either; rural areas, harder to track, might hide even more. McGregor's claim that Irish people could become a minority in their own towns isn't a statistic yet, but it's a trajectory you can feel if you walk those streets.
The EU Migration Pact he's railing against only sharpens the edge. Set to be fully implemented by June 2026, it's a plan to spread asylum seekers across Europe, and Ireland's government seems eager to sign on. McGregor sees it as a betrayal—a top-down decree that ignores the Irish people's say. He's right. Between now and November 2025, when the next president is elected, legislation will lock this in, and who's asking the locals if they want it? Not the Oireachtas, not Micheál Martin. McGregor's promise to put it to a referendum isn't just populist theater—it's a rare nod to democracy in a process that feels anything but. Ireland's leaders call his fears "wrong" and "outrageous," but they're dodging the question: why not let the people decide?
Then there's the cultural shift, the part that stings most. Ireland's "Irishness"—that mix of language, tradition, and yes, a mostly white, Celtic identity—is fraying. In 2023, riots erupted in Dublin after an Algerian migrant stabbed three girls, a flashpoint that showed how immigration tensions aren't just theoretical. McGregor's been vocal since, warning that unchecked inflows threaten the native Irish, especially the white majority who've defined the nation for centuries. The establishment says there's no "dispossession" here, pointing to census data showing Irish people still dominate. But numbers don't tell the whole tale—culture does. When rural schools shift to teaching in multiple languages, when Gaelic games lose ground to foreign pastimes, when the white Irish start feeling like guests in their own home, that's dispossession, slow and subtle as it may be.
Critics wave away McGregor's rhetoric as exaggerated, even racist. They lean on stats—632,000 non-Irish isn't a takeover, they say, and crime's not spiking out of control. The Irish Times insists no town has flipped to a minority Irish population, and the Garda claims McGregor's crime fears are baseless. But dismissing him ignores the lived experience behind his words. Rural Ireland isn't tracked as tightly as Dublin; those 2022 figures are already stale. And crime? Ask the families in Coolock who've seen protests over migrant housing turn ugly. McGregor's not pulling this from thin air—he's channelling an unease that's simmering beyond the elite's gaze.
What's more, the land itself is at stake. Ireland's history is tied to its soil—famines, rebellions, the fight for every acre. Now, with housing shortages biting, immigration adds pressure. Newcomers need homes, and rural areas, once bastions of Irish families, are filling with faces from afar. The white Irish, already just 7 percent of the world's Irish diaspora, risk losing their ancestral grip. McGregor's White House plea to Irish-Americans—"there'll be no place to come home to"—hits hard because it's not just nostalgia; it's a glimpse of a future where Ireland's identity dilutes into something unrecognisable.
Ireland's changing faster than its people can consent to, and the white Irish, the backbone of its past, are slipping from the frame. Once more, it is the Great Replacement in action.
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