Eoin O'Dell

Art Detectives, Vermeer forgeries, and the slaveship Zong cearta.ie/2025/11/art-de… My new blogpost, featuring inter alia @blackdog_tv @PGPowell @elmaorkestra @AndrewGrahamDix @BurnardTrevor @KatieDonington @dmchristmas @ttarvind @mnourbese @LauraSRobinson and lots of movies

5/5 Part 7 of the Act, relating to SLAPPs, will not be commenced until the Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation Bill is passed. The General Scheme of that Bill was published on 11 February 2026: assets.gov.ie/static/documen… (pdf)

4/5 The Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026 (Commencement) Order 2026 (SI No 61 of 2026) is here irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2026/si/61… (pdf) and here gov.ie/en/department-… (pdf) A better HTML version will be available - eventually.

1/5 Links to recent developments in the law of #defamation in Ireland are now available The Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024 oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/… passed all stages in the Oireachtas on 11 February 2026 and was signed by the President on 19 February president.ie/en/the-preside…

@MattHar65517869 That’s exactly why I said nothing as I left!

@cearta On the way out, I told him the president of X university would probably not be pleased to hear that his business had been broadcast about a train for all to hear. The guy's response? "Mind your own f-- business." Classic.

1/3 From the “Don’t do this, folks” files: Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to learn that I’m currently in a coffee shop. Almost everyone is on a device of some sort. Guy opposite me has a laptop running a video meeting app. It seems like he’s running the meeting.

3/3 He’s stopped remembering to be quiet. I can hear him over the stream I’m listening to in my earpods. So I’m going to leave. Note: neither he nor anyone else in the cafe is perturbed by any of this. Holding a meeting online in a cafe is annoying, but GDPR breach is v serious

2/3 He’s listening to the others on headphones, so we can’t hear them. And he’s trying to speak quietly. But, before I put in my own earpods, I heard several instructions very clearly, most of which amounted to breaches of the GDPR. Oops! Don’t do this, folks. Just don’t.

President Connolly signed the #Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026 president.ie/en/the-preside… and it has accordingly become law. A pdf soon on that page and here irishstatutebook.ie/eli/acts.html & html page at that latter link later Meanwhile Bill as passed oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/…

Shorter days and colder weather can leave a lot of students feeling tired, flat, or not quite themselves🌫️ Here are realistic, student-friendly ways to make the darker months a little lighter✨Read the full blog post: trinity-experience-blog.com/2025/11/27/fin…

I am so very grateful I was allowed to write @thetimes obituary of Conor Gearty, Irish human rights barrister and academic, and a cofounder (with Cherie Blair) of @MatrixChambers - which has just run. It’s a testimony to the seriousness of The Times that my editors so generously gave me time to read all his books and word count to reflect on his most important arguments - like his deep disquiet with the concept of terrorism, and whether we can trust judges to be human rights’ guardians. It was an honour to spend so much time with the mind of such a generous, contrarian, likeable man who deployed his considerable gifts always on behalf of the most powerless, from the UK to Palestine. He makes me proud of our shared passport, and provokes me to do better in following his example. thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/…

This Decision does not address whether Google’s personal data processing complies with GDPR.

Sky must provide end of contract and alternative tariff information to customers. High Court rules ComReg entitled to orders requiring company to end practice of automatically renewing agreements irishtimes.com/crime-law/cour…

🌐 A redesigned Curia website Clearer, more accessible and easier to navigate 👉 curia.europa.eu/site/ #CJEU #InfoCuria #EUlaw #CuriaWebTV #DigitalTransformation

A case which considers whether the “best interests of the cat” is a test in Canadian law when deciding which partner gets custody of the cats. Also involves replevin. Does the excitement ever end? canlii.org/en/ab/abkb/doc…

‘Sinister’: Serious concerns raised about Bill allowing gardaí to seize journalists’ phones. Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan has been urged to urgently clarify the details of the proposed law thejournal.ie/gardai-seize-j…

The Rule of Law. direct.mit.edu/ajle/article/d…

The French DPA has published its AI guidelines in English, covering topics such as legitimate interests for AI, web scraping data collection, supporting data subjects’ rights, informing data subjects, data annotation, and AI system security. See cnil.fr/fr/ai-how-to-s….