Is there anyone on the forums from Ireland?

[Bob Schroeck]

If so, I feel deeply sorry for you, as your country appears to have abandoned free speech as a principle.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, well, to summarize a digest of a brief, a good-intentioned attempt to wipe an antique law punishing blasphemy off the books backfired spectacularly, and now they have a brand-new modern blasphemy law which pretty much makes it a crime punishable by a $35,000 fine to say anything insulting about anyone's religion.

Yes, I'm serious.

NPR article here.
Opinion column in The Guardian on it here.
Irish atheists defy new blasphemy law.
More attempts to break the law as a protest.
25 quotes from such troublemakers as Richard Dawkins, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Jesus Christ, Mohammed and Pope Benedict XVI which are blasphemous under the new law.
The actual text of the law.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Black Aeronaut]

.... Okay, I never saw this coming.

[khagler]

There's a reason why so many people have described Ireland as "priest-ridden." For most of its history Ireland was rather backwards, and it's only very recently begun to change. It's not a matter of abandoning free speech as a principle, because Ireland never had free speech in this area. From the Constitution of Ireland:

The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions.

The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.

The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.

[Fidoohki]

... and the stupid just keeps on coming.. What is it about Goverments that seem to leech away IQ points?

[ECSNorway]

Power corrupts. Absolute power is... shiny.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Logan Darklighter]

This is so incredibly stupid. Badly written, poorly thought out law. This whole situation seems like it could have stepped straight out of a Monty Python skit.
No no - wait. More like it could've popped out of Terry Gilliam's head at his most pessimistic (Brazil, anyone?)

[Bob Schroeck]

Bob uses Thread Necro! It's Super Effective!

So... I was searching for "Guest" posts when I came across this thread and recalled the whole issue -- and realized I never learned what happened after. So I went looking.

According to Wikipedia, while the blasphemy law remains on the books in Ireland, there have never been any prosecutions, or (apparently) even any arrests. There have been investigations, but it sounds like the entire legal system of Ireland is more or less pretending the 2009 law doesn't exist unless actively forced to acknowledge it, and does as little as possible to deal with it.

What I find interesting is the existence of a blasphemy law is required by the Irish constitution, according to this article, but no one really wanted it in this era -- and despite how we all reacted to the 2009 law, it may have been a deliberate effort by someone to circumvent the constitutional requirement by fulfilling it in a completely unworkable form. To quote Wikipedia quoting other people:

Neville Cox said, "My view is the 2009 act fulfilled a constitutional obligation on the crime of blasphemy, but skilfully rendered the law completely unenforceable. I am not saying that was the intention". Dermot Ahern commented in 2017, "We implemented the crime but made it in a way that it would be virtually impossible to prosecute."