Blogger must pay €100,000 for libel

A blogger has agreed a €100,000 settlement after libelling Niall Ó Donnchú, a senior civil servant, and his girlfriend Laura Barnes. It is the first time in Ireland that defamatory material on a blog has resulted in a pay-out.
Barnes, an American book dealer, made a profit of up to €800,000 in 2005 from selling a cache of James Joyce papers to the state. One year later she began a relationship with Ó Donnchú, an assistant secretary in the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism.
In December 1, 2006, a blogger who styles himself as Ardmayle posted a comment about the couple and the sale of the Joycean manuscripts under the headline “Barnes and Noble”. Following a legal complaint, he took down the blog and in February 2007 he posted an apology which had been supplied by Ó Donnchú’s and Barnes’ lawyer, Ivor Fitzpatrick solicitors.
“I subsequently discovered that these remarks were inaccurate,” Ardmayle said. “I unreservedly apologise to both Laura Barnes and Niall Ó Donnchú in respect of this post.”
However, the pair subsequently issued separate proceedings. It is understood that the €100,000 settlement was agreed shortly before the case was due before the High Court. A full defamation trial before a jury can cost €700,000-€800,000 in legal costs for both parties.
The blog, still active at http://ardmayle.blogspot.com/, is in the form of a personal diary with observations on the arts, literature and sport. The author is not identified, and the litigants may have got his details through his internet server provider (ISP).
The settlement was subject to a confidentiality agreement, which forbids the blogger from speaking about it publicly. Neither Ó Donnchú nor Barnes responded to invitations to comment.
Barnes had previously said that the libel suit was “not about money [but] about people being held to account”.
It is understood that the blogger has paid only a small proportion of the €100,000 damages, and was recently made redundant from his job. In addition to the settlement, he must pay his own legal costs.
The case is likely to have a chilling effect on the Irish blogosphere, which generally takes a casual attitude to defamation and people’s reputations. The Ardmayle action was settled before a new Defamation Act came into effect on January 1.
In 2008, members of the Committee of Public Accounts accused the National Library of Ireland of being “stung” in the Joycean papers deal. The library could have bought the papers from a Parisian bookseller for €400,000 in 2004. They eventually paid €1.17m to Barnes.
Ó Donnchú was cleared of wrongdoing by an internal inquiry in the Department of Arts in 2007. It concluded that the department’s interests were not compromised by his relationship with Barnes, and that the official had “dealt appropriately” with his responsibilities under ethics legislation.