'I didn’t leave the house': TikTok's Garron Noone reflects on immigration video

Mayo comedian and musician Garron Noone has said he lost a lot of sponsorships and didn't leave his house for a week following a wave of negative reactions to a video he posted on his social media pages.

On March 20, Noone, who hails from Ballina, stated: “There absolutely is an immigration issue in Ireland and the systems we have in place are being taken advantage of”. He made the comments in a TikTok video shortly after Conor McGregor met with US President Donald Trump.

Just moments later, the Ballina man began to receive plenty of backlash on his social media accounts, where some argued he was bullied off the internet. When Noone returned to social media, he clarified that he is not against immigration nor is he aligned with McGregor.

Speaking to The Hard Shoulder on Newstalk's evening show, Noone confirmed he received “hundreds of messages” quoting things he had never said while also being linked to people he did not want to be associated with. 

"I felt like I was going to walk outside and people were going to start shouting at me about me, all these awful things people were saying I was going to be," he said.

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"So, I didn’t leave the house for a week after that. I didn’t sleep much while I was gone and look, I’ve learned from that. I know what might come if I say something in the future. That’s life and I’ve accepted that as part of what I’m doing".

"There was a small group of people who maybe sort of deliberately mistook what I said and tried to make it look a lot worse than it was. There were some that had a disagreement. Most people understood what I was saying and whether they agreed or disagreed, were fine about it."

He added that he felt some parts of the video “could have been better worded” and he “didn’t expect it to get as much attention as it did."

Echoing a follow-up video he posted on March 24, Noone said he stands by what he said initially and that there are people “taking advantage of what people feel isn’t being heard".

Mr Noone, who has 2 million followers on both his Instagram and TikTok pages, has since returned to social media where his videos remain ever so popular.