This is a short excerpt. The full essay was published by Law & Liberty, July 2025
The US State Department visited Ireland in May to discuss its censorship regime. In Europe, free speech is dying, and the front line of this war is Ireland. Modern Ireland suppresses non-modern views, reviving the spirit of the old Committee on Evil Literature. Banning books may not seem like a global concern, but Ireland dominates the EU data center market and has pending hate speech legislation. If free speech falls in Ireland, it falls across Europe.
The country’s political and economic position makes it a lynchpin for the digital world, with American firms relying on Ireland for their European bases. This gives the EU the ability to use the Irish government to enforce censorship across the continent. While a coalition of free speech activists has temporarily forced the government to retreat on the Hate Speech Bill, anonymous progressive mobs continue to punish dissent, threatening the intellectual freedom that is vital for a free society.
Read the full essay at Law & Liberty.