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ESPN MAGAZINE’S ‘FIGHTING Issue’ comes out on August 21 and – unsurprisingly given his bout against Floyd Mayweather is just five days later – Conor McGregor is gracing its cover.
The splash talks about his “dangerous road” to Mayweather:
The longread cover story is written by renowned American sportswriter Wright Thompson and delves into the Dublin gym scene, McGregor’s mood in the run-up to the fight and his roots in Crumlin.
The rather hyperbolic depiction of Dublin has come under fire since the article appeared online yesterday. Particularly this passage:
It’s a clannish, parochial place. Crossing the wrong street has traditionally been reason enough for an ass-whipping.
Men have had to drop dates off at bus stops instead of walking them all the way home. About 60 boxing clubs still dot the city, training kids to defend themselves and their block, each gym a world unto itself.
The neighboring, rival communities of Crumlin and Drimnagh are within the gritty Dublin 12 postcode, separated only by Crumlin Road, which runs on an east-west diagonal.
The piece itself is over 5,000 words long and is being widely praised outside of Ireland.
However, for Irish readers, this portrayal of Dublin as a war-torn gangland has been coming in for some criticism.
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used to say i "lived" on crumlin road for seven years but maybe i have to start saying i "survived" https://t.co/QAPcuONwY5
Phrases like “turf” and “projects” are littered throughout, and many of the sections about McGregor’s hometown have raised the eyebrows of some readers.
Any mysteries about him can be solved on his home turf: an area named Crumlin, built in the 1930s just south of Dublin’s centre, when the government tore down the inner-city tenements and needed a new place to house the poor. The Irish revolutionary writer Brendan Behan was one of those moved there, and he described his new home as a place ‘where they eat their young.’
There’s been no response from Wright Thompson to the controversy as of yet.
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Lived in the Bronx for a couple of years in an area run by the Bloods. Had to walk through Crips territory on the way to the subway (undergound). In my local park you had the Gorilla Brims, the Mac Ballers, Latin Kings, Trinitarios, MS-13 and the Gangster Disciples, the Mexican Mafia ran the corner shop and the Colombians cast a long shadow over the hood, but let me tell you nothing ever prepared me for that summer spent in Dublin. Many’s the night I lay awake in my Dalkey apartment wishing I was back in the safe environs of Throgs Neck, but what the heck, I lived to tell the tale.
Haha good one.Sounds like the Warriors cult classic movie set in New York – The Baseball Furies,The Orphans and trying to make it back to Coney Island via the Subway.Great movie.
@gjpb: in some of Dublins most notorious fueds, feuding families have literally lived across the road. Constant fighting for just crossing the street. The article is more accurate than you think.
@Michael Geraghty: ye I think you’re talking about when the kids have a fight and the mothers are screaming back and forth from their front doors at each other …
@Philip King: the sheriff street gangland fued was neighbouring families of only a few house separating them with a garda car literally parked between the two. Different families in the area aligned to each other. There was around 7 gangland murders from that.
@Suzie Sunshine: The Crumlin/Drimnagh feud was a thing. 16 murders between 2000 and 2012. It was gang on gang though so didn’t really impact uninvolved locals, it wasn’t like living in a housing project in the US. Maybe a bit of a transatlantic cultural misunderstanding by the author?
It’s a bit over the top but fact is most of it is correct. Rocket launchers have been seized and many young man have been killed in dublins workig class areas due to gang violence . Sure the lad they were writing about frazer was nearly killed yesterday .
I’d say that’s a mellow enough depiction of Dublin giving the amount of gangland killings lately.it should read you could get shot dead if you’re seen talking to a certain family from Dublin
@Mark Nolan: he attended a public gaelscoil in Tallaght, Dublin 24, a public one made up mostly of working class kids until he left to start his apprenticeship.
@Suzie Sunshine: I walked out of The Gate on Friday to the sight of 4 squads, a police van, and a helicopter overhead on the Old County. It’s nothing to see heavily armed police all over Crumlin. Though strangely enough, I love and feel safe there.
@Philip Gerard: exactly ! . Very rarely anything would happen to you. .The gate was a good spot when the Dillons had it .. not sure what it’s like now though .
He says hes from the streets but from what i remember he lived in what i would call a palatial home in that documentary before he made any serious money, far from the streets, i call BS
Growing up in the working class areas of any city in Ireland will make it sound like a completely different city to those who did not, although some poetic licence can be seen here.
@Quentin Moriarty: he’s also a fraud in how he depicts in where he comes from. I embrace sports people from Ireland who keep it real and are true about where they came from not frauds. And don’t give me that bulshit begrudger line. McGregor isn’t going to be hiding behind that tired line.
Best sports article I’ve read in ages, despite the exaggerations. And, what do people think a project is? Project = Public Housing Project. It doesn’t mean ‘Sao Paolo favela’. In one of the Michael Moore documentaries, he went to (world famous) south-central LA, and it was quiet residential streets, with neat lawns and no hassle. He was asking, “where’s the no-go area we’ve been seeing in news & film’. I’ve no doubt most US ‘projects’ are the same.
Yeah I was in crumlin yesterday and I saw two of the most notorious old age pensioners,paddy the axe man rielly and Seamus one eye Murphy giving out stink to each other at the bus stop.
I was so scared I crossed to the other side of the road.Its worse than the Bronx I’m telling ye!
No wonder Conor left for LA.
Lets be honest, we all avoid Sheriff street where possible. Crumlin and Drimnagh do have a gang issue. Just because because we don”t like people saying it doesn’t mean its not true.
Had to stop reading that, what a load of shit! Granted McGregor is from Crumlin (originally) His family moved out of there about 13/14 years ago to Laraghcon in Lucan. Houses going for €500,000, a very middle class area. McGregor would want to ditch the “I came from nothing “, “I’m from the streets” act.
@Brian Kelleher: well said Brian.hes going on like ur man Frank McCourt selling a very bad image of his country that he used to sell his image.
I’m very disappointed with him.
He should be promoting his home country not denigrating it.
@Brian Mardle:
lmfao I knew it wouldn’t take long for someone to come out with that tired old ‘begrudger’ line.
If the truth hurts they’ll always fall back on the old reliable.
McGregor will love this garbage article. Crumlim being misrepresented as one of the poorest and roughest places in western Europe to elevate McGregors self proclaimed rise from rags to riches. If McGregor wants to push this untrue fantasy story let him at it. But leave Crumlin out of it. And don’t tell me McGregor has nothing to do with the writing of this article. This rags to riches theme has been pushed by him from day one. McGregor is a fraud. Plain and simple.
Leaving aside the depiction of Dublin it’s actually a very interesting look into McGregors mind. He’s clearly a fairly fragile guy from a mental standpoint, not a criticism btw, and Kavanagh clearly knows what makes him tick . Personally I won’t be watching the fight as it’s a total farce but as insight into the motivation to do what he does it’s a brilliant read.
@Dermot Quinn: You’re spot on, it was a brilliant look into the chasm between his public and private selves, post-apocalyptic Dublin sensationalism aside. Genuinely makes me like McGregor more knowing that he can be that fragile, or that he’s worried about getting jumped (not sure how true that is, though, a few left hooks and there’d be bodies sprawled around him). That he surrounds himself with coaches and trainers who know him that well is a testament to his intelligence, never mind his fantastic media manipulation.
What a pile of stereotypical last century bull. Shit we are so scared the cross the road we go piggy back on a pig from the parlour.
Places like Stockton where Dias is from now thats rough… bullet holes on ever slum corner. Every traffic stop is life threatening, no money and thats the city the schools the everything. That place makes Dublin look like Diseney Land, in fact most of America does. As rough at the back end on a bear.
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