Mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor has met Donald Trump in the Oval Office after complaining about Ireland’s “illegal immigration racket”.

The 36-year-old told Mr Trump that his work ethic was “inspiring”, with the two men sharing jovial comments about the fighter’s suit and a map featuring the Gulf of Mexico labelled as the Gulf of America.

In comments made in the White House briefing room before the meeting during the St. Patrick’s Day visit, he said he was visiting the White House to “raise the issues the people of Ireland face”.

“What is going on in Ireland is a travesty,” he said. “Our government is the government of zero action with zero accountability.”

McGregor warned “Ireland is at the cusp of potentially losing its Irishness” due to the “illegal immigration racket”.

“Ireland and America, we are siblings. We consider America our big sibling. So it’s important for Ireland to be a peaceful, prosperous country for 40 million Irish Americans to have a place to visit, [to] come back to their home.

“So we wish for our relationship with the United States to continue, and we wish to be taken care of by the big bro. The United States should look after its little bro. And that’s how we feel,” McGregor said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who appeared alongside McGregor in the briefing room, said: “We couldn’t think of a better guest to have with us on St. Patrick’s Day.”

At a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin last week, Mr Trump said McGregor was his favourite Irish person partly because “he’s got the best tattoos I’ve ever seen”.

But Mr Martin and deputy prime minister Simon Harris have been critical of today’s Trump-McGregor meeting.

In a post on X, Mr Martin said: “McGregor’s remarks are wrong, and do not reflect the spirit of St Patrick’s Day, or the views of the people of Ireland.”

Meanwhile, Mr Harris said that McGregor was not in the US to represent Ireland and did not speak for the people of Ireland, and “has no mandate to”.

In exclusive comments made to Sky News’ David Blevins about Mr Martin’s comments, McGregor said: “Shame on him for saying that, speaking down on an Irish man.”

He added: “Every metric available to us has shown that the government of Ireland has failed the people of Ireland.”

Mr Trump is well known for his support of Ultimate Fighting Championship, which McGregor is best known for competing in, and attended bouts during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Read more: The deepening ties that led to the controversial Tates flying to freedom in US

McGregor is a controversial figure in Ireland after a woman who accused him of raping her won her civil case and was awarded more than £200,000 in damages.

Tesco was among the retailers that stopped selling alcohol brands linked to McGregor after Nikita Hand was awarded €248,603 (£206,000) after a jury found McGregor assaulted her in a hotel in 2018.

McGregor is appealing against the outcome of the civil case.

McGregor also pleaded guilty to assaulting a man in a Dublin pub in 2019 and has been subject to several other allegations of assault and sexual assault.

His social media posts were also linked to the 2023 Dublin riots. Irish police were reportedly investigating McGregor’s posts for alleged incitement to hatred in relation to the riots.

McGregor, nicknamed the Notorious, rose to worldwide prominence for winning several UFC championships.

No checkpoint is the same, some want paperwork, others wave you through after a brief look inside – but from Damascus to Latakia, there are a lot of checkpoints, and in one way or another, you are checked every time.

It wasn’t like this just a month or two ago, but it is now after the most violent few days the country has seen since Bashar al Assad was forced from power in December last year.

We drove through cities like Jableh, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, almost unrecognisable now.

The bustling streets, markets and shops are silent, apart from the sirens of passing General Security convoys – their armed soldiers packed on the back of pick-up trucks.

The debris of battle is everywhere, buildings are burnt out and peppered with bullet holes, glass from smashed shopfront windows spills across the pavement and spent machine gun casings litter the streets.

After three months of relatively peaceful times, things have dramatically changed here, all because of the events of 6, 7 and 8 March.

A Thursday, Friday, and Saturday that could determine Syria’s future.

Driving out of Jableh and over a bridge, we pass through another checkpoint, then through a deserted village, home to a community of Syrian Alawites. Shops and homes are destroyed, soldiers guard the roads in and out.

We are on our way to the Hmeimim air base, home to the Russian military in Syria.

It’s also now home to as many as 10,000 Alawites who are now camping in and around the base.

They are seeking shelter and protection, watched on by Russian soldiers who remain inside.

Some of the thousands are in tents or under makeshift cover, others are sleeping rough or in their cars.

I first visited the airbase last December – then it consisted of a small cluster of shops and restaurants, established over years to service the Russian personnel.

Now the shops are shuttered and the restaurants cleared of tables to allow the families to sleep.

As I approached the gates of the base, I was surrounded by people pushing against each other, trying to get to me to tell me stories of being burnt out of their houses, or of family members killed in front of their eyes.

A young woman pulled me aside. “We need help, international help,” she whispered.

“We need international peacekeepers; my house was on fire.”

In the crowd, I met Adiba Shehaidi. She’s sleeping rough outside the base after escaping her village, Ain al Arous.

“They attacked us, just like that, slaughtered us, our friends, our neighbours, our children, our relatives – our in-laws, all of them, were slaughtered. They stormed the houses, shooting…” she recounted her story of escape.

“What can we say? To the world, what can we say? What was our crime?” she cried.

We were told that whole families had been killed with some buried in mass graves.

Not far away from the base, in the village of Al Sanobar – we found one. A mass grave consisting of two trenches, dug under the cover of darkness by villagers. They buried 80 people here.

Sticks had been placed in the earth to signal a body buried beneath. We are told a family of 17 are in one of the graves.

Further into the village, we came across a group of men digging more graves. They told us they had found the bodies of their families, friends, and neighbours littered on the streets and in houses.

So far, they have buried 223 people, all from this one village.

On trucks, the bodies wrapped in blankets and plastic were brought to their final resting place near their homes. Under a blistering sun a simple ceremony is held, then side by side they are buried.

These families have been devastated – their anguish obvious.

Read more:
Alawites take refuge from Syrian army
Government forces clash with Assad loyalists
Syria vows to investigate mass killings

Convoys of government security forces are now constantly patrolling all the areas where the killings took place, and they are trying to encourage the Alawites to return to their villages, saying it is now safe.

The head of General Security, Mustafa Kunefate, told me what happened here was unacceptable and must not happen again.

He explained how Assad loyalists had attacked and killed soldiers, police officers, and civilians – filming it and posting it on social media. This, he said, led to “undisciplined groups” arriving to this part of Syria, acting “outside of the Ministry of Defence’s command”.

“Among these groups were some with a questionable intent, many arrived with no clear instructions, simply coming to break the siege on the Ministry of Defence personnel and police,” Mr Kunefate told me.

“This resulted in chaos and a breakdown of discipline among the fighting groups that entered the coastal region.”

The scene of some of the worst fighting happened in the city of Jableh when the pro-Assad militia attacked. Much of the centre of town has been badly damaged in the fighting, and it is tense.

General Security convoys constantly patrol the city, home to Sunni civilians who were murdered like their Alawite neighbours.

Imad Bitar’s father Talal died after his car was fired upon by Assad fighters.

I met him in their family home where he told me he wants peace but believes it will only happen when Assad’s fighters are captured.

“We must find a way to live together, our only demand now is for the remaining factions to leave Syria and for those responsible for the regime’s crimes to face a formal trial. It’s not about sectarian divisions, it’s about justice.”

This has been a difficult time for the new government trying to unite Syria.

The massacres of Alawites at the hands of militia puts President Ahmed al Sharaa’s unity project in jeopardy.

But if there is a positive from that dreadful weekend, it is that the government acknowledges the mistakes and is promising to bring those responsible to justice.

The World with Yalda Hakim at 9pm on Sky News will feature a series of special reports on Syria from our chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and special correspondent Alex Crawford.

Watch their latest report inside Al-Hol camp, where thousands of families affiliated to the former Islamic State group are being held by Kurdish forces in northeast Syria.

At least 51 people are reported to have died in a fire at a nightclub in North Macedonia.

The blaze broke out while a local pop band was performing at around 2.35am on Sunday in the town of Kocani – allegedly after fireworks were set off inside the venue, interior minister Panche Toshkovski told a news conference.

Although the public prosecutor’s office said the “number of victims and injured in the fire is being determined” – 100 people are thought to have been injured, Mr Toshkovski said.

They are being treated at Kocani General Hospital, where relatives have gathered to await more information, newspaper Nova Makedonija said.

The country’s prime minister Hristijan Mickoski is travelling to the scene, it added.

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