One year to sue. The post may not last the week.
Irish defamation law gives you one year from publication, which a court can extend to two years at the very most. On 1 March 2026 much of the Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026 commenced: juries are gone from High Court defamation actions, the Circuit Court can order the identification of an anonymous poster, and there is a simplified public interest defence. What has not changed is that everything you need to prove sits on a page somebody can delete.
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M. Traeger
Public post · 412 shares
“The people running that firm took money that was never theirs. Ask anyone who worked there. I would not let them near my family.”
Deleted six days later, after 412 shares. One year to sue, and nothing left to sue about.
Captured & sealed
SHA-256 · Bitcoin timestamp
Illustrative example. Fictional post and fictional firm.
In Ireland a defamation action must be brought within one year of the cause of action accruing, extendable by a court to two years at most, and since 1 March 2026 High Court defamation trials are heard by a judge sitting alone. ProofSnap captures the post and its reach as a hashed, signed, eIDAS-timestamped evidence package before it is deleted.
Irish defamation law starts from a short definition. Section 2 of the Defamation Act 2009 defines a defamatory statement as one that tends to injure a person's reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society. Section 38 of the same Act sets the limitation period at one year from the accrual of the cause of action. A court may extend that period only where the interests of justice require it, and never beyond two years. Section 11 gives a person one cause of action only in respect of a multiple publication, so the clock generally runs from first publication rather than restarting each day the page stays online.
The Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026, No. 2 of 2026, was brought into operation on 1 March 2026 by S.I. No. 61 of 2026. It abolishes juries in High Court defamation actions and introduces a serious harm test that applies to bodies corporate only. It also inserts a new section 45 allowing the Circuit Court to order the identification of an anonymous poster, simplifies the defence of publication on a matter of public interest and adds a statutory defence for retailers. Part 7, the anti-SLAPP Part, was left out of that commencement order and is not yet in force. Ireland has no general serious harm threshold for individual plaintiffs, so guidance written for England and Wales under the Defamation Act 2013 does not apply here.
ProofSnap captures the post, the profile, the comment thread and the visible engagement as a package of 11 to 15 files, depending on the plan. It contains the full-page screenshot, the saved source, the URL, the UTC capture time, a SHA-256 hash of every file, an RSA-4096 signature over the manifest and an eIDAS qualified timestamp from Disig a.s., a Qualified Trust Service Provider on the EU Trusted List. Because Ireland is an EU member state, that timestamp carries the Article 41(2) presumption directly, with no question of recognition to argue about. From $4.99 (approx. €4.30) as a one-off.
By Radim Motycka, Founder and Lead Engineer, ProofSnap · · Independently verifiable via Trust Verifier
Why this goes wrong so often
The post comes down, and the case comes down with it
People delete defamatory posts, usually because somebody advised them to, and the deletion happens long before your solicitor sees the file.
Deleted before you get advice
The gap between reading something about yourself and instructing a solicitor is usually days. That is more than enough for the post, the account or the whole page to disappear, and platforms are not obliged to keep a copy for you.
An anonymous poster has to be identified
The Circuit Court can now order identification, but an application needs to show the court what was published and where. If the post is gone, the application is built on a description of something nobody can see.
One year, two at the outside
The action must be brought within one year of the cause of action accruing. A court may extend that period, but the statutory ceiling is two years, and extensions are not granted lightly.
What changed on 1 March 2026, and what did not
The Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026 reshaped procedure rather than the underlying tort, and added a serious harm test that a body corporate, and only a body corporate, now has to meet. For an individual plaintiff the deadline and the burden of proving publication are exactly where they were.
Juries abolished in the High Court
Since 1 March 2026 High Court defamation actions are heard by a judge sitting alone. The stated aim was to reduce cost, delay and unpredictable awards. A judge decides on the documents in front of them, which raises the value of a record that can be verified rather than merely described.
Identifying anonymous posters
A new section 45 allows the Circuit Court to order the identification of a person who posted allegedly defamatory material anonymously. The court has to be satisfied that a claim that the statement is defamatory is likely to succeed at trial, which in practice means putting the publication itself before the court, so it has to be preserved before the account vanishes.
One year, extendable to two at most
Section 38 of the Defamation Act 2009 requires the action to be brought within one year of the cause of action accruing, or such longer period as the court may direct, not exceeding two years. An extension is available only where the court is satisfied that the interests of justice require it and that the prejudice to the plaintiff would significantly outweigh the prejudice to the defendant.
New defences, and one Part still to come
The 2026 Act provides a simplified defence of publication on a matter of public interest, new statutory defences for retailers and for live broadcasting, and support for alternative dispute resolution. Part 7, the anti-SLAPP Part, was left out of the commencement order and is not yet in force. Each of those defences stands or falls on what was actually published.
Capture the reach, not just the words
The most common gap in an Irish defamation file is proof of extent. A judge sitting alone assesses damages from the papers, and the papers have to show how far the statement travelled, not only what it said. The five things to capture below set out what to preserve and in what order.
Why an Irish court can rely on a captured page
Two provisions do the work in Ireland, one domestic and one European, and neither of them is about defamation. They are about electronic evidence, which is what a defamation file now consists of.
Section 22 of the Electronic Commerce Act 2000 is the Irish evidential hook. It provides that the rules of evidence shall not deny admissibility to information in electronic form solely because it is electronic. Nor may admissibility be denied on the ground that the information is not in its original form, where it is the best evidence the person adducing it could reasonably be expected to obtain. A capture of a web page is exactly that kind of best available evidence once the page itself has been taken down.
The second provision is European and, because Ireland is an EU member state, it applies here directly as EU law rather than through any recognition or retained-law argument of the kind the United Kingdom has to make. Regulation (EU) No 910/2014, the eIDAS Regulation, says this about qualified electronic time stamps:
Article 41(1): “An electronic time stamp shall not be denied legal effect and admissibility as evidence in legal proceedings solely on the grounds that it is in an electronic form or that it does not meet the requirements of the qualified electronic time stamp.”
Article 41(2): “A qualified electronic time stamp shall enjoy the presumption of the accuracy of the date and the time it indicates and the integrity of the data to which the date and time are bound.”
Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council, Article 41, paragraphs 1 and 2. Quoted verbatim fromEUR-Lex. Cross-border effect now rests on the internal market principle in Article 4 and on the fact that Article 41(2) applies in every member state.
The presumption goes to the date, the time and the integrity of the data, never to the truth of what the page said. An Irish judge still weighs whether the statement was defamatory. What the presumption removes is the argument about when your capture was made and whether it was changed afterwards, and that is exactly the argument a defendant runs against a plain screenshot.
Five things to capture before you contact a solicitor
Take these in order, on the day you find the publication, and capture each one as its own record so it can be pleaded separately later.
- The publication itself. The full page, not a cropped window, so the words complained of sit in the context they were read in.
- The account behind it. The profile, the handle, the display name and any other post from the same account. If the poster is anonymous, this is the material a section 45 application is built from.
- The extent of publication. The share count, the view count, the reactions and the size of the group or page it appeared on. These numbers move while the post is live, so a capture on the day you find it is worth more than one taken a fortnight later.
- The comment thread. Comments show that readers understood the statement to refer to you, which is the identification element of the tort.
- Every republication you can find. Reposts, screenshots of the post on other platforms and coverage that repeated it, each captured separately.
The section 45 route is the reason that sequence matters. Under the Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026 the Circuit Court may make an identification order only where it is satisfied, among other conditions, that a claim that the statement is defamatory is likely to succeed at trial, that the information is necessary to bring proceedings and that the applicant has no other practicable means of obtaining it. You cannot show a court that a claim is likely to succeed on the strength of a post that nobody can see any longer.
How do I capture a defamatory post in Ireland?
No forensic training required. The proof is in the package, not in your testimony about how careful you were.
Capture the publication and its reach
The post, the profile behind it, the comment thread and any reposts. Each capture records the URL and the UTC time, so the record shows what appeared, and when.
The package seals and timestamps itself
SHA-256 for every file, an RSA-4096 signature over the manifest, an eIDAS qualified timestamp and an anchor to the Bitcoin blockchain, so the date of your capture cannot be moved.
Hand it to your solicitor as one file
The PDF reads like a finished report, and the ZIP can be verified in a browser. Your solicitor gets a file to build the letter or the application from rather than a folder of loose images.
What is in a defamation evidence package?
Between 11 and 15 files, depending on your plan, delivered as one ZIP that anyone can check without installing anything.
Full-page screenshot
The whole page, not just the visible window, stitched and hashed.
Saved page source
The document as rendered at capture time, including the head, meta tags and structured data.
Extracted page text
Searchable plain text, so a quote can be found and cited without retyping.
Technical metadata
URL, page title, HTTP response headers, browser, operating system and the capture time in UTC.
Signed manifest
SHA-256 for every file, signed with an RSA-4096 private key, with the matching public key included in the package.
Blockchain timestamp
The manifest hash anchored to Bitcoin via OpenTimestamps, so the capture time cannot be backdated.
Chain of custody and forensic log
A record of what happened during the capture, in the order it happened.
Evidence report as PDF
A readable summary you can attach to an application, a notice or a report.
Verification instructions
Written steps plus scripts, so the other side can re-check the hashes offline.
Where all of that comes from
Every file above is produced by a single click in the side panel, while the publication is still up. The words complained of, the account behind them, the web address and the time are recorded together, and that is the material the originating pleading has to set out with some precision, whether the action is brought by plenary summons in the High Court or by civil bill in the Circuit Court.
If the same statement was published in several places, capture each one. Separate packages make it far easier to plead separate publications later.
Want to see what comes out before you install anything? Download a sample evidence package and open it yourself.
Anyone can verify it, including the other side. Drop the ZIP onto the public Trust Verifier and the hashes, the signature and the timestamp are checked in the browser. Nothing is uploaded and nothing depends on ProofSnap still existing.
Three ways to get the evidence
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One dispute
$4.99 one-off
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A SnapPack is a single up-front purchase for a set number of captures. No subscription, no auto-renewal, no trial. Best when you have one problem and you want it documented today.
Get a SnapPackOngoing matters
$8.99/month
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For anyone who captures regularly: practitioners, property managers, HR, investigators. The 7-day free trial requires a credit card. Cancel any time during the trial and you are not charged.
Start the 7-day trialWe do it for you
$44.99 per URL
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Send us the link and our team captures the page and builds the package for you, with nothing to install. Useful when the capture should not come from a party to the dispute.
See the capture serviceProofSnap is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Qualified timestamps are issued by Disig a.s., a Qualified Trust Service Provider on the EU Trusted List. Ireland applies eIDAS directly as an EU member state, so those timestamps carry the Article 41(2) presumption here without any retained-law argument.
Official sources
Every figure and deadline on this page comes from the following primary sources. Check them yourself rather than taking our word for it.
- Defamation Act 2009, section 2, the definition of a defamatory statement.
- Defamation Act 2009, section 11, the single publication rule for a multiple publication.
- Defamation Act 2009, section 38, the one-year limitation period and the two-year ceiling.
- Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026 (No. 2 of 2026), the Act as enacted, including the new section 45 identification order.
- S.I. No. 61 of 2026, the commencement order: which provisions came into operation on 1 March 2026, and which did not.
- Electronic Commerce Act 2000, section 22, admissibility of information in electronic form in Irish proceedings.
- Regulation (EU) No 910/2014, Article 41, the presumption of accuracy of date and time and of the integrity of the data, applying directly in Ireland.
- Oireachtas: the Bill and its passage, the debates and the stages behind the 2026 reform.
- Citizens Information: the law on defamation, a plain-language summary of the tort and the defences.
Ireland and the United Kingdom look similar here and behave differently, so do not work from English guidance. There is no general serious harm threshold for individual plaintiffs in Ireland, and the eIDAS presumption applies directly rather than through retained law. The position next door is set out on our page on defamation evidence in England and Wales.
If the statement was made by an employer in connection with a dismissal, the six-month WRC deadline will usually bite long before the defamation one does. A landlord and tenant dispute runs through the RTB evidence timetable instead.
Questions people actually ask
One year to act. The post may not last the week.
Capture the publication and its reach while both are still visible, then take advice.