He subsequently joined Fine Gael but resigned in 2007 after issues around a press release criticising the party leader with regard to Crumlin Children's Hospital; he later rejoined, then left again.
It later emerged that these posters had been handed out to marchers who did not recognise the symbol, by anti-abortion campaigners as part of what was described by the Sunday Times as "a dirty trick straight from Richard Nixon’s playbook".
[23] McGuirk has been criticised for his characterisation of opponents, such as stating that Colm O'Gorman, head of Amnesty International Ireland, was a "cretinous stain on the Irish national discourse who’ll say whatever Soros pays [him] to" and the description of a pro-choice TD, Kate O'Connell, as a "catty, spiteful, loathsome twit" after the TD shared screengrabs of misogynistic tweets from a member of the Fine Gael National Executive.
[24] In the wake of violence at anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests by far-right groups in Dublin in February 2021, McGuirk defended those opposed to Ireland's pandemic measures.
[25] In March 2021, RTÉ paid €20,000 to charities nominated by the socialist republican party Éirígí after McGuirk, on an episode of Prime Time, falsely linked the group to the killing of the journalist Lyra McKee in Derry in 2019.
[28] In November 2023, Gript published an article that included details that allowed an individual to be wrongly accused on social media as a person of interest in the stabbing that happened hours before the 2023 Dublin riot.
[29] In February 2024, lawyers acting on behalf of the wrongly accused man lodged papers with the Irish High Court to initiate legal action against Gript and McGuirk.