Stephen Fry, the Meaning of Life, and the Problem with Irish Blasphemy Law

Abstract

Abstract In May 2017, news broke that comedian Stephen Fry was, briefly, under investigation in Ireland, for blasphemy, leading to a reaction of outrage that a blasphemy law existed in Ireland in 2017. This mirrored the equivalent reaction in 2009 when Ireland, in fulfilment of a constitutional obligation, defined the crime in a piece of legislation. A blasphemy law must, by definition, be predicated on a religious public morality that regards certain kinds of irreverence as being ‘unsayable’ and, because Irish public morality is now secular in nature, the law, even though it can have no substantive impact, carried an embarrassingly erroneous message about the nature of modern Ireland. The impact of the law was, therefore, symbolic, and the reaction was against what was seen as an embarrassing and inaccurate symbolic message about the nature of modern Ireland. The disconnect between Irish public morality and the existence of a blasphemy law is the strongest reason why the law should be abolished, and is also the reason why it is unjustifiable as a matter of International Human Rights Law.