WITH ALL the talk about Conor McGregor's latest 'notorious' act, it got us thinking about other Irish celebrities whose careers were marred with controversy.
1 Conor McGregor
McGregor hasn't won a fight since 2016-- unless you count old men in bars.
The MMA fighter might be an obvious choice, but with his recent alleged assault on an elderly man who refused to drink McGregor's own-brand whiskey, he absolutely deserves the top spot on this list. This assault comes after McGregor's speeding offences in Ireland (for which he showed up at court by abandoning his vehicle in the road before speeding off after the trial), being convicted of stealing and breaking a man's phone, pushing a referee during a match he wasn't even fighting in, and of course the infamous 'chair throwing' incident, you have to wonder if he is intentionally going around being the biggest gombeen imaginable for branding reasons-- he is The Notorious after all.
2 Liam Neeson
Fans of the renowned Irish actor were put in an uncomfortable position last year when Liam Neeson admitted, of his own accord in a televised interview, that he had once walked around the city at night looking for a black person-- any black person-- to murder.
He was eventually forced to publicly claim that he is not a racist, that he was in a dark and angry place after a friend of his was raped, but for many the damage was done.
3 Liam Gallagher
The Oasis star, whose parents are from County Mayo, has a well-publicised feud with Noel Gallagher which seems like it will never end-- but he has been on the receiving end of controversies that has nothing to do with his brother.
He was banned for life from flying with Hong-Kong airline Cathay Pacific after abusing crew and passengers in 1998 on a flight from the UK to Australia, and while in Australia paid a substantial sum of money out of court to a man he allegedly headbutted.
In 2010, at the BRIT Awards, he swore while collecting the award, thanked every member of Oasis except for his brother, threw the microphone and gave the award away to a random person in the audience.
4 Noel Gallagher
Strap yourselves in for this one.
We could spend hours writing about all the distasteful things that have followed Noel throughout his career, but we'd probably still miss something. The man has to be the most controversial figure to ever come out of Ireland (Although McGregor is doing his best to catch up) and with his actions being recorded for nearly thirty years there are plenty or reports on his shenanigans.
He famously -- or infamously-- told two members of rival band Blur to "catch AIDS and die" in an interview with The Observer in 1995, which he was quickly forced to apologise for but apparently never learned his lesson.
He got physical with his brother Liam in a brutal fight involving a cricket bat when Liam brought everyone in a pub back to the studio when Noel was trying to work, and another time headbutted his brother when Liam drunkenly suggested that Noel's daughter Anais may not be his-- although many believe Liam deserved that one.
Noel had a bit of a tantrum when Jay Z was announced as a headliner for Glastonbury in 2008, saying "If you start to break it then people aren't going to go. I'm sorry, but Jay Z? No chance. ... It's wrong."
Jay Z opened his set with a cover of Oasis' "Wonderwall".
Most bizarre of all, Noel has an ongoing feud with drumming legend Phil Collins, claiming he is "the antichrist" and that "people hate f***ing c**ts like Phil Collins, and f they don't they f***ing should."
5 Sinéad O'Connor
There's not a person alive who can deny Sinéad O'Connor's incredible voice, but the singer has been followed by controversy from the very start of her career.
The most infamous example has got to be her appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1992, where O'Connor ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II while singing a cover of Bob Marlay's "War" in a protest against child sexual abuse and subsequent cover-up by the Catholic Church.
O'Connor was vilified, alienated and angrily mocked for her stunt-- but some have argued that such a stand would have stirred a different reaction if it was done today, with the cover-up of child sexual abuse now extremely well-publicised.
6 Brian Cowen
Sure, no politician is without their fair share of controversies. Almost all of them could find a spot on this list, but then we'd be here forever.
But former Taoiseach Brian Cowen's fall from grace was so bizarre, awkward and downright cringeworthy that we had to make an exception.
Cowen became Taoiseach just weeks before the 2008 financial crash and subsequent recession, so he was already going to have a tough time keeping the people of Ireland happy-- and he did not succeed. His political party suffered record lows while he was in power, and at one point a poll found him to have an absolutely dismal 8% approval rating.
But his most infamous feck-up was when he appeared on RTE's early morning radio show, Morning Ireland appearing to be either drunk, horrifically hungover or somewhere in between. It had been a late one at Galway's Ardilaun Hotel the night before, and the half-cut Taoiseach confused the Good Friday Agreement with the Croke Park Agreement live on air.
The politician has always denied being drunk or hungover, instead claiming he was tired and that there was "a hoarseness" in his voice.
7 Bono
Despite being one of the most successful Irish musicians ever, you'd be hard pushed to find someone in Ireland who will openly admit they like the man.
Irish 'begrudgery' might have something to do with it, or the fact that Irish people don't like being told what to do, even if what they're being told to do is to save the planet and heal the sick, but it is Bono's hypocrisy when it comes to giving that caused the biggest stir in the singer's home country.
After Ireland changed the law regarding tax exemption for artists in 2006, Bono and U2 immediately moved their taxation affairs to The Netherlands in order to avoid contributing to the country that raised him and where he still resides today.
When the 2008 financial crash hit Ireland, when the country was poor and people were struggling, public services could probably have done with a bit of fairly-taxed money from the U2 frontman.
