Religion in the Republic of Ireland
Christianity is the largest religion in the Republic of Ireland based on baptisms. Irish Christianity is dominated by the Catholic Church, and Christianity as a whole accounts for 82.3% of the Irish population. Most churches are organized on an all-Ireland basis which includes both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Irish travellers have traditionally adopted a very particular attitude to the Catholic Church, with a focus on figures such as "healing priests". More generally a tradition of visions continues, often outside of Church sanction.
Blasphemy law in the Republic of Ireland
In the state of Ireland, "publication or utterance of blasphemous matter", defamatory of any religion, is criminalised by a 2009 statute passed to enforce a requirement of the 1937 Constitution. The constitutional requirement was deleted in 2018 after a referendum and the Fine Gael-led government plans to repeal the 2009 law, which was intended to be "virtually impossible" to enforce, and under which no prosecution has ever been made. The common law offence of blasphemous libel, applicable only to Christianity and last prosecuted in 1855, was believed to fulfil the constitutional requirement until a 1999 ruling that it was incompatible with the constitution's guarantee of religious equality. The 2009 statute filled the lacuna but increased controversy, with proponents of freedom of speech and freedom of religion arguing for amending the constitution.