Are serious insults illegal?

Good question.

In a legal sense (im not qualified to say, but I’ll have a go):

Calling someone a racial slur is hate speech as it’s based on their ethnicity.

Calling someone ugly or fat isn’t one of the core targets of discrimination; gender, ethnicity etc.

That’s just a guess!

On another note, my old man was a solicitor, he told me, as an example, that calling someone a “bastard” is slander but calling them a “bloody bastard” isn’t.

Someone has been running to the Mods like a little schoolboy, I know it wasn't you though 🤔. At least a hypocrite has been exposed on this thread. Some people say what they think of people straight out, and others say one thing but have a totally different view in private.

the irony in this is delicious.

Insulting people should be illegal.... he is a loser. :P careful what you wish for! :P

The law is well established going back to well before the internet. Regarding public utterances, radio and TV and printed publications. Those media outlets are generally well regulated. Some internet users who would not insult others in public seem to feel free to write the most vile things in their role as "keyboard warriors". This is the area of the law which will probably be developed. People need to realise that they are publishers, equal to a newspaper, when they write things in public, and are subject to the same laws.

I agree that it's a horrible and nasty thing to do, but if it ruins a person's self esteem and confidence for years there was already a pre-existing issue.

What a headmelt of a thread.

Read Page 1.

Just behind their backs :)

If you want to go the court route to punsuh someone for saying a woman is the ugliest person he had ever seen it might open up another can of works.

He would have to demonstrate in court how ugly she is.

Then she would have to demonstrate that there are uglier women than her around.

He would then say well i have not seen them.

She brings i an uglier woman and then says , now you have so i am now the second ugliest woman you have ever seen.

He says well at the time i said it you held the number one spot. Now you are number two.

No, I dont think this will work.

And even if they could be identified, there's a defense that the person saying the insult believed at the time that she was the ugliest woman in the world. And also that it's just an opinion.

How would people who insult others even be charged or prosecuted? The bar for that must be very high considering how a lot of people are excellent at hiding insults or bullying behaviour. They are masters at couching their nasty words and behaviour in ways that achieve their intention to hurt/insult/embarrass/belittle or bully the receiver, but to onlookers it seems like banter or just a smart/silly remark.

We are very good at that kind of thing in this country and if anyone calls it out, those nasties respond with things like dont be so sensitive, or I was only joking, or she/he is such a drama queen, or I'm entitled to my opinion, or its just a bit of banter.

That brutal 'banter' is even used by a huge multi-national drinks company in their local tv ad campaign where people are sneered at because of their appearance or activities "but it's all coz we love ya". Blatant nastiness right there, but people think those ads are funny and buy that product 😡😡😡

It happens quite frequently on boards also, nasty rude snide posts that are only about one-upmanship. So if those things are rife, clear as day, and yet nobody does anything about them, imo policing one-off insults is practically impossible.

As has been pointed out, certain categories of citizens are protected by legislation. In those cases prosecutions could be taken by the State. Otherwise it would be a civil matter where one party brings the other to court. That does not involve the Gardai having to arrest anyone.

You can read the 2009 Defamation Act to see how well the legal texts matches your plain language assessment of insults etc. As always it comes down to what a "Reasonable Person" would think.