Thousands of people participated in a march against Ireland’s mass migration policies in the country’s capital of Dublin on Saturday. 

UFC champion Conor McGregor – who is considering a potential presidential bid in his native Ireland – posted a video message beforehand from Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance, where the march began hours later. 

“Hello everyone in Ireland. April 26th, 2025 – A big day here for our country. “A historic month for Ireland since 1916,” McGregor said, referring to the recent anniversary of the year of the Easter Rising against British rule. 

“Over 100 years ago, our brave men and women made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could live free today. So let us remind ourselves why we are here. And also why we are not here,” McGregor said. “We are not here to build hatred amongst each other. We are not here to sow division. We are here to commemorate the valiant heroes who went before us. We honor their spirit, we honor their fight.” 

They held banners that read, “Boycott Apartheid Israel” and “Dublin Stands Against Racism,” according to photos from the scene. 

Gardai on duty near a counter-protest at the GPO on Saturday, April 26, 2025.  (Conor O Mearain/PA Images via Getty Images)

McGregor first announced his interest in running for president of Ireland after meeting with President Donald Trump on St. Patrick’s Day, though the fighter has suggested the country’s nomination process is stacked against outsiders like himself. 

Those who spoke at the march included Dublin City councilors Gavin Pepper, Philip Sutcliffe and Malachy Steenson and Fingal councilor Patrick Quinlan, according to Breakingnews.ie.

“The fact of the matter is we’re bringing in thousands and thousands of people and putting them up in hotels while our own people are being left to rot… We’ve had enough of this in Ireland,” Pepper said to a cheering Dublin crowd, according to a video shared on X. “Irish people come first in our own country. It’s time for mass deportation. The traitors of Sinn Féin do not care.” 

The prime minister of Ireland, who holds the title of taoiseach, Micheál Martin, told reporters on Sunday that he did not “accept the negativity from those who spoke yesterday in respect of where modern Ireland is today,” according to a video shared online by Susanne Delaney, a contributor to the anti-globalist outlet Irish Inquiry. 

“The level of opportunity in modern Ireland today again is far in excess of anything previous generations experienced in terms of educational completion and so on,” Martin, who also met with Trump in the Oval Office earlier in March, said. “The big social issue of our day is housing, but we’re focused on solutions to that and less so on the rhetoric of it.” 

Asked about the growing size of the “Irish nationalist” movement, Martin said the “ballot box is the key metric, the key determinant of the organization of society, who gets elected into government, who gets elected into local councils.” 

“And I think it has to be based on ideas and policies,” he said. “We believe we have a stronger set of ideas than perhaps those who articulated yesterday.”