On the couch beside me was a disabled, mute guy in a zip-up Liverpool tracksuit top. I'm not good at guessing age and even less so with people of disability but i'd say he was mid-30's. He was clutching a copy of the EA Sports UFC game. He kept tapping me on the shoulder and pointing to Conor McGregors face on the game and smiling at me and making joystick movements with his hands.

I've never really tried to communicate with a mute person before but i tried to keep it to single words like "playstation?!!". He'd poke me again on the shoulder, just to point to the game and Conor again and smile. I pointed to Ronda on the game and said "Ronda Rousey (yeah)?" and he shook his head.

This repeated for half an hour.

It then moved to hugging. He'd poke my shoulder, point to his game and throw his arms wide for a hug. All i could do was smile and give him a hug and a thumbs-up.

......

Just as i was about to leave Conor arrived and the mute guy ran over to me jumping up and down waving trying to get Conors attention. He then pushed me on the shoulder and did a beard sign with his hands and pointed to the game and pointed towards Conor. His smile was unreal. He didn't need words.

Conor ducked in to the changing rooms. A short while later he came back out and the fella jumped up and down again waving his arms in the air. And poking me again with the "it's him, it's him" look on his face. And another hug.

Conor is 2 weeks from the biggest fight of his life. He walked over with Colin Byrne and gave this man a proper, genuine hug, a huge smile and patiently waited while the man handed us his IPad and made photo signals with his hands. Conor took the iPad from him, launched the camera and we took photos of the 3 of them together. The mute guy stood beside Conor, kept pointing to his UFC game, poking Conor in the arm and pointing to Conors face on the game, in a "you're on the cover of this game!!!" way. Conor was like "haha yeah i am".

I'm telling ye lads, words could not describe the look on this guys face and how happy he was.

Say whatever you want about Conor McGregor but that was a touch of pure class.

(For any begrudgers, i'm not looking to give McGregor a Sainthood or the keys to the city, so relax).

Nobody should underestimate or play down the serious and perilous situation that Conor McGregor now finds himself in.
Through no fault of his own it appears he has inadvertently locked horns with members of the Kinahan cartel, which includes people who are well accustomed to killing – one of whom has notched up at least three murders in his malevolent career.
The public need to remember that these people are psychotic thugs for whom there are no boundaries or behavioral parameters: if you cross them they will either kill you, seriously injure you or simply leave you and your loved ones living in fear of your lives.

It is in my experience unprecedented that organised crime would be in a position to consider themselves so omnipotent that they can casually now target a worldwide sporting icon Conor McGregor's calibre simply as a result of a brawl in a pub.
This is what we describe narco-terrorism. Over the past almost 20 years we have seen the slide towards this much more pernicious criminal demeanor.

Over the past 72 hours sources in the criminal underworld and the gardai have been consumed by this developing and chilling saga.
Conor McGregor knows a lot of the bad guys who were involved in the notorious Crumlin-Drimnagh feud and also the extended Kinahan crime cartel – because he grew up in the same area....