The head of the Grand Lodge of the Freemasons of Ireland has said he would not have allowed an interview with Conor McGregor to take place on their premises had he known who was involved in advance.
Philip AJ Daley, grand secretary of the Freemasons of Ireland, said the organisation learned who the interviewee was an hour before McGregor sat down with right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson to record the interview last Tuesday at the Grand Masonic Hall on Molesworth Street, Dublin.
The interview took place against the backdrop of the large pipe organ in the Grand Lodge Room, the most significant room in the building.
Mr Daley said McGregor’s “morals and principles would not sit well with Freemasonry”.
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“The bulk of our membership would not be happy with this individual. We do not want to be seen to endorse him,” Mr Daley said.
He confirmed an American media company contacted them last Thursday in advance of Tuesday’s interview “but they deferred and deferred and deferred and only told us at the last minute” that it was McGregor who was going to be interviewed.
Mr Daley said he has written to the 22,000 members of the Freemasons of Ireland, many of whom were offended by the interview. “It should never have happened. It did, and we have to work through it,” Mr Daley said.
Other interviews have taken place in the Freemasons’ Hall on Molesworth Street over the years without any issue and usually with months advanced notice, he said.
Mr Daley said the fee for the booking was donated to a local charity.
The 54-minute interview with McGregor was released on Carlson’s social media channels on Friday and is closing in on a million views.
During the interview McGregor, who was last year found liable for rape by a High Court civil jury, criticised the Irish Government, claiming the it was responsible for the “erasure of Irish culture” and what he termed “mass immigration”.
McGregor also told Carlson that his ambition to become president of Ireland may not get off the ground as Ireland is “not a democratic country”. He told Carlson that he would need the support of at least 20 Oireachtas members or four local authorities to get on the ballot.
A recent Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks opinion poll found 7 per cent of the public would vote for McGregor for president.
“Ireland, like a lot of countries in the western sphere, is being governed by people with ill intentions,” McGregor said during the interview.
“They have not got the interest of their people at its heart. However, our country stays strong,” he said.
The 36-year-old said the citizens of Ireland “do not feel like first rate citizens”, and “what is going on here is an abomination, a travesty, and it cannot continue for much longer”.
He also claimed the rising cost of living in Ireland is a “national emergency” and people are fed up with the waste of public money.
Calson hosted a nightly political talkshow on Fox News from 2016-2023. He was dismissed by the network that he had joined in 2009 as a contributor. No reason was given by Fox for the departure.
In November of last year a jury in a civil trial at the High Court found McGregor raped Nikita Hand in a hotel in Dublin in December 2018. She was awarded almost €250,000 in damages.
McGregor is appealing the decision.
