Any precedents on Libel and Defamation Law for Bloggers in Ireland?
Written on April 18, 2008 by Conor O'Neill
Mike Butcher has just published a very useful piece on how to protect yourself as a blogger if you write something that results in a libel action being mounted against you and your content. It is all based around “The Reynolds defense of Responsible Journalism”. Whilst it makes total sense to me as a lay-person, it clearly is only directly relevant to UK bloggers.
Since it’s generally felt that Irish libel law is even more ridiculous than that of the UK, I wonder if there are any similar cases/precedents that apply here? Also, is there any difference between writing in Ireland on a US-hosted blog or on an Irish-hosted one. Obviously there is for the webhost but what about the blogger?
Any Irish legal-eagles wish to comment? But please, no lay person anecdotes or “well if you tell what you think is the truth you’ll be fine” opinions. A set of iron-clad guidelines for Irish bloggers would be really useful and we should all link to such a resource if it exists.
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Fergal Crehan BL’s roundup of his own writing on this, along with the DRI pamphlet is the best starting place I know of.
http://www.tuppenceworth.ie/blog/index.php/2008/04/01/internet-libel-again/
Thanks Simon, that’s exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.