Senator Ronan Mullen voted against the Irish blasphemy law in 2009, despite denying that he did so on Prime Time yesterday. He opposed the blasphemy law because it did not explicitly allow religious people to blaspheme against matters held sacred by other religions. He added: ‘I say this as someone who worked for five and […]
One of the arguments that Atheist Ireland has made, in support of removing the Irish blasphemy law, is that repressive regimes have used our law to politically justify their use of blasphemy laws, and to attempt to spread blasphemy laws around the world. Here is the most significant example of this in action, in which […]
Atheist Ireland welcomes today’s unopposed vote in the Oireachtas to hold a referendum on 26th October to remove the offence of blasphemy from the Irish Constitution. We have been campaigning for a decade to get this referendum called, and we will campaign for the next six weeks for a Yes vote. We support the right […]
The Irish Constitution, written in 1937, makes blasphemy an offence punishable by law. There will be a referendum on 26 October (along with the Presidential election) in which we can vote to remove this anachronistic offence. Atheist Ireland supports the right to freedom of religion or belief, the right to freedom of speech, and the […]
Six years ago, Atheist Ireland joined LGBT Noise in a small protest outside the Catholic Church’s Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, against the ongoing efforts by the Vatican to oppose equal civil rights for LGBT people. A lot has changed since then. This week Atheist Ireland will join a much larger number of protesters, in Dublin […]
Yet again Ireland is to hold a Presidential election that excludes conscientious atheists as candidates, as in order to take office we would have to swear a religious oath that is in our Constitution. This would force us to dissemble about our beliefs, and breaches our human right to freedom of conscience and belief. The […]
Atheist Ireland welcomes the published wording of the proposed amendment of the Constitution on around 25 October to repeal the offence of blasphemy. Atheist Ireland will be meeting this afternoon with officials in the Department of Justice, to clarify any technical or logistical questions that we have. We will then commence our fourteen-week campaign in […]
Twenty years ago this weekend, my wife Anne and I were in Paris to watch the 1998 World Cup final. It remains the culmination of my football-watching life. Nothing since has matched the scale of the atmosphere of seeing the inspired French defeat the magical Brazilians before a passionate home crowd to capture the world’s […]
The Education (Admissions to Schools) Bill has now passed in the Dail. From September the vast majority of schools will no longer be able to discriminate in entry on the grounds of religion. However, minority religious schools can still continue to discriminate as they still have exemptions from equality laws. Atheist Ireland has been campaigning […]
Joe Davis, one of Atheist Ireland’s earliest and most-loved members, died this week. For most of his life, he felt like an outsider as an atheist living in Ireland, and he was delighted to have found a like-minded community when Atheist Ireland was founded a decade ago. We were delighted to have had the privilege […]