In yesterday's Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole condemned the image of Crumlin which Conor McGregor is promoting through the cultivation of his own personal image.
Speaking on Radio One's Today With Sean O'Rourke, it was an opinion which O'Toole reiterated.
"He knows what he's doing, he understands image. What I'm angry about is that he has subsumed Crumlin, which is a very large community, into this image. He's subsumed it in a way which is exactly the sort of stuff that for my generation growing up in Dublin that we were trying to get away from," said O'Toole.
When I was growing up in Crumlin in the 1960s and 1970s, it was a stigmatised place, like a lot of places. The same was true of Ballyfermot and the same was true in Cork and elsewhere. Nobody good ever came out of Crumlin, it was associated with criminality, it was associated with wildness. This was always a disgusting stereotype that was a lie about the lives that the vast majority of people were living.
What McGregor has done, because he's modelled his image on gangster rap in the states - ironically for someone who has been extremely racist in a lot of his language - he's trying to be a gangster rapper. That's the image that he's using. Of course, to be a gangsta rapper, you have to be from a crime-ridden, drug-ridden mean street ghetto. Just simply deciding that Crumlin is going to be held up before the world as a crime-ridden ghetto.
Wright-Thompson's pre-Mayweather vs McGregor ESPN The Magazine piece, which described Crumlin as a 'project', was a prime example for O'Toole of the image which people are being shown of the area due to the UFC fighter's stardom.
O'Toole said that, of late, McGregor has shown "contempt for the law", especially a fortnight ago during an appearance at Blanchardstown District Court on a speeding charge.
"Pulling up in his BMW and leaving the doors open at the court saying, 'I'm just popping in here to get a packet of cigarettes or something. I'll be out in a second, it doesn't matter.'"
Sean O'Rourke's suggestion that perhaps O'Toole was simply taking McGregor too seriously and that he adds to the "gaiety" of the nation was one with which he did not agree.
There's no gaiety in this and he knows it, he's a smart guy. Kids in Crumlin and kids in other parts of Ireland who really admire this guy do not need to be told that the way you express success is in contempt for women, throwing money around the place, contempt for the law, hanging around with drug dealers.
You know, showing all of your power through this superiority to other people. That's not what a working class cero should be about. I think this guy has responsibility, whether he likes it or not. He's become someone who influences the way that a lot of people see the world.
Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
