• Northern Ireland still technically has common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel dating back to the 1800s, making it the only place in the UK or Ireland where these offences remain on the books.
  • There’s no evidence of their use in Northern Ireland and some legal experts say it’s unclear whether they could actually be enforced.
  • Alliance MLA Connie Egan has proposed an amendment to the Justice Bill to remove them, noting that blasphemy laws have already been abolished in England and Wales (2008), the Republic of Ireland (2020) and Scotland (2021).

On 24 February 2026, Connie Egan, Alliance MLA, submitted an amendment to the Minister of Justice’s Bill to repeal common law offences that criminalise blasphemy in Northern Ireland. 

In a statement, Egan said that “Blasphemy laws have no place in modern society and Northern Ireland is the only place across these islands that still has these archaic offences, dating back to the 1800s, on the books.”

Is it the case that these offences still exist? 

Yes. 

For more information on how this law still applies in Northern Ireland, read on. 

  • Blasphemy law in NI

Blasphemy law in Northern Ireland evolved as common law, which is a legal system developed from judicial decisions, case law, precedent and customs rather than simply Parliamentary Acts. 

The basis for common law in Northern Ireland is Irish common law, which closely mirrors common law in England as a result of the Act of Union in 1801. Blasphemy law in Ireland applied to Christianity, and in particular, the Church of Ireland.

However, it’s claimed that there has never been a prosecution for a blasphemy offence in Northern Ireland. 

In a 2009 debate in the House of Lords, Lord Lester of Herne Hill said that it was “not even clear that there is a blasphemy offence in Northern Ireland now” due to the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869, which makes blasphemy law “vague and unenforceable”. 

It has also been widely argued, for example by the Northern Ireland Humanists and the NI Human Rights Commission, that blasphemy laws may not be compatible with modern human rights frameworks. Connie Egan also underlined this point in her February 2026 statement, “these laws are not only outdated and unused, but they also violate the right to freedom of speech and expression, and infringe upon the right to freedom of religion or belief.” 

  • Blasphemy throughout the UK and Ireland

In England, a variety of statutes underpinned common law on “blasphemous libel” which allowed prosecutions to occur – the Criminal Libel Act 1819, the Libel Act 1843, the Newspaper Libel and Registration Act 1881 and the Law of Libel Amendment Act 1888.

When Northern Ireland was created in 1921, existing law continued automatically through the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

It has been unclear what exactly counted as blasphemy. In a 1977 prosecution in England, the trial judge said that blasphemous libel was words which were scurrilous, abusive or offensive, which vilified Christianity and might lead to a breach of the peace.

In reality though, in England, Wales and Scotland, blasphemy laws were not used very often. The last person to be executed for blasphemy was Thomas Aikenhead in Edinburgh in 1697 for denying the authority of the Scriptures. In Ireland, the last blasphemy trial was in 1855. The last person to be imprisoned in England was John William Gott in 1921 for mocking Christianity (comparing Jesus to a circus clown).

In 1949, Lord Denning (then a Lord Justice of Appeal) stated that the law was a “dead letter” – obsolete and irrelevant. However, in 1977, Mary Whitehouse brought a case against the editor of Gay News for publishing a poem deemed to be blasphemous because it depicted a Roman centurion’s fantasies of Jesus. The editor was convicted and received a suspended prison sentence, demonstrating that the laws could still be used.

  • Abolition 

Blasphemy laws were formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and in Scotland in 2021. The Republic of Ireland abolished its blasphemy laws in 2020 after a referendum in 2018, leaving Northern Ireland as the only place across these islands that continues to have common law blasphemy offences on its books. 

Back in 2013, the Irish Inter-Church Meeting – consisting of members of the Irish Council of Churches together with representatives from the (Catholic) Irish Bishops Conference –  commented ahead of the convention that would examine the removal of blasphemy from the Republic of Ireland’s constitution, acknowledging “that the current reference to blasphemy in the Constitution of Ireland is largely obsolete and may give rise to concern because of the way such measures have been used to justify violence and oppression against minorities in other parts of the world”.

At the time of publication, there has been no public comment from other faith traditions.

The National Secular Society, in its campaign to abolish Northern Ireland’s blasphemy laws, say that “as long as blasphemy laws remain on the books, there is always the risk that they may be invoked to silence criticism or ridicule of religion.” They draw attention to a play banned by Newtownabbey Borough Council in 2014 on the grounds that it was “blasphemous.”

  • Blasphemy Amendment in NI

People in Northern Ireland are protected from religious hatred, hostility and harassment under the Public Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 (as amended by the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008), and human rights legislation  including the Human Rights Act 1998.

Connie Egan, Alliance MLA, submitted amendment 23A to the Justice Bill on 24 February 2026. This read simply: “The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel are abolished.”
At the time of writing, the Justice Bill is currently at Committee Stage. At the moment, Connie Egan’s amendment has simply been tabled. It will be debated, and a decision about its inclusion in the Justice Bill will be made at a later stage.