An Irish rape crisis charity has complained about Conor McGregor’s meeting with Donald Trump at the White House, describing it as a “sinister” move that could help “launder” the mixed martial arts fighter’s reputation.
Rachel Morrogh, the chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, has written to the US embassy in the Irish capital raising concerns about the meeting, which took place on Monday, Saint Patrick’s Day.
Morrogh told the Guardian the meeting, which took place four months after a jury in an Irish civil case found McGregor liable for rape, sent a message that “there is a path to redemption leading directly to the White House”.
She said: “We do believe that the meeting between Trump and Conor McGregor was really very sinister and we have called it out for what it is, which is … an attempt to rebuild the very damaged reputation of Conor McGregor.
“I think what has really shocked us is that the office of the president of the United States, which is so respected and so revered, is being used to launder Conor McGregor’s reputation.”
In November, McGregor was ordered by a civil court to pay nearly €250,000 (£210,000) in damages to a woman who said he “brutally raped and battered” her in a hotel in Dublin in 2018. He has said he had consensual sex with the woman and is appealing against the verdict, with a hearing scheduled for Friday in the high court in Dublin.
McGregor, a former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champion, used his platform at the White House to hit out at the Irish government over immigration, saying the country was “potentially losing its Irishness” and claiming that some rural towns had been “overrun in one swoop”.
Dressed in a green suit on Ireland’s national day, McGregor was invited to speak in the official White House briefing room alongside the president’s press secretary before going on to meet Trump and Elon Musk in the Oval Office along with his partner and children.
McGregor, 36, has been supported by figures including the self-styled misogynist influencer Andrew Tate and anti-immigration campaigners in Ireland whose reach has been turbocharged by Musk’s retweets.
But his claim to speak for the people of Ireland on the issue of immigration has been widely derided and condemned. The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said McGregor’s claims were simply “wrong”. The finance minister, Paschal Donohoe, said his “heart fell” when he learned of the meeting.
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McGregor later responded by saying the Irish government had taken “zero action with zero accountability”.
A rise in immigration has caused tensions in some parts of Ireland but there is no evidence for McGregor’s claims of towns being “overrun”. Government data shows that in the last three years, just over 45,000 people have applied for asylum in Ireland, which has a population of about 5.3 million.
Some believe the fighter may be positioning himself for a presidential run in Ireland later this year.
