Ireland has been criticised – even condemned – once again because the performer and writer Stephen Fry has been accused of blasphemy, under the country’s 2009 Blasphemy Act.
When Mr Fry appeared on RTÉ Television, in 2015, the interviewer Gay Byrne asked him what he would say if, after death, he encountered God. Fry then described the Judaeo-Christian God as “utterly evil”, and “a capricious, mean-spirited and stupid God … a maniac, an utter maniac” – because of all the suffering in the world. (He added that he wouldn’t object to a meeting with the ancient Greek gods, because they were more “human”.)
An anonymous complainant has now asked the Gardaí to investigate whether Stephen Fry can be charged under the Blasphemy Act.
The background of this legislation is complicated. Ireland’s constitution (dating from 1937) “acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence and shall respect and honour religion.”
This is now regarded by many politicians as outdated, but can only be removed from the constitution by referendum. Trying to avoid a referendum in 2009, the then justice minister Dermot Ahern updated the blasphemy law, saying that he hoped to frame it in such a way that no one would ever invoke it. But then, a citizen did.
Many Irish Catholics, as far as I can gauge, would not want to prosecute Stephen Fry – if that is his view, he’s entitled to hold it, even if it seems bad-tempered, and a little childish. But respect freedom of speech.
Yet aren’t the laws against “hate speech” also a restraint on freedom of speech? Isn’t the “hate speech” prohibition also a form of censorship – even a secularist version of blasphemy? It has also been pointed out that the Charlie Hebdo controversy could never have occurred in Ireland, because the blasphemy law also protects the faith of Muslims.
Actually, I didn’t think there would be an appetite to prosecute Stephen Fry, and indeed it was dropped. Thus the intention – of having a blasphemy act in name only – was fulfilled.
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I saw the play King Charles III when it was on in the West End, and disliked it. I thought it was unkind and pretentious – basically fictional gossip and speculation about the death of the Queen and the new reign of Charles, aspiring to be Shakespearean drama. It was done with polish and professionalism, because London’s theatrical standards are the best in the world.
But the substance was thin, and it seems to me that the BBC has shown poor judgment in turning it into a television broadcast (on BBC Two). It’s particularly hurtful about Prince Harry. Tim Piggott-Smith, who plays Charles, admitted in his last interview that watching it would be “agony” for William and Harry.
Mr Piggott-Smith has since died, which lends the production a macabre note. The thought might occur to us that we should never presume too much on the timing of the Queen’s death – any of us could depart before her.
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While Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the West Country have basked in warm Maytime sunshine this month, Kent has been in the grip of a bitter wind and a biting cold, under leaden grey skies. People converse about how they have switched on their winter heating again. But convent training (and perhaps justifiable apprehension about British Gas bills) has stayed my hand. It goes against
the grain to turn on the central heating in May.
There are too many voices in my ear telling me to Put Up With It. Wear more clothes. Fill a hot water bottle (one night last week, I took two hot water bottles to bed).
The idea of central heating in May just strikes me as self-indulgent to the point of decadence. If it’s nippy, suffer in silence! Thus did Greek stoicism feed into Christian austerity and self-denial. Don’t always do what is comfortable. Think of what poor people, homeless people or refugees have to endure.
I cleave to the stoical tradition in these small matters, and those of us who eschew easy heating are also entitled to claim, satisfyingly, that we are acting in the best interests of the environment.
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