The High Court ordered the removal or painting over of graffiti on a wall in Howth that accused people involved in a planning process of improper conduct. The order will remain in force until the hearing of a defamation action brought by the owners and occupiers of nearby premises.
In a judgment delivered on 8 May 2008, Mr Justice John Hedigan continued an injunction previously made by Ms Justice Laffoy. He also ordered the defendant, Thomas Carlyle, or his servants or agents to remove from the gable wall all offensive text that was the subject of the proceedings. The court had not made a removal order when it first restrained further writing in July 2007.
The dispute concerns a gable wall overlooking the forecourt of Renaissance House, formerly St Mary’s Church, on Church Street. The plaintiffs said the writing accused them and others of improper conduct in obtaining planning permission for the site, and was defamatory. The judgment described the wall as highly visible and said the writing had grown to cover a large part of it during 2007. Carlyle admitted writing the statements and said he wanted the plaintiffs to take him to court so he could plead that they were true.
The plaintiffs denied wrongdoing. Carlyle’s allegations about the planning permission remained allegations: the judge did not decide whether they were true. The planning permission had been granted in 1996, and Carlyle acknowledged that the time to challenge it by judicial review or appeal had expired.
The court said the words were defamatory unless Carlyle could establish a defence of justification. At this interlocutory stage, it found there was “just about a reasonable basis” for him to argue that defence at trial, although the judge described the task as daunting. The court therefore did not determine the defamation claim or resolve the competing allegations.
The judge called the case exceptional, citing the abusive and vengeful tone of the writing, its impact on the plaintiffs’ use of their premises and what he considered damage to the visual environment. He weighed those factors against freedom of expression and the usual caution against restraining allegedly defamatory material before trial. The injunction and removal order are interim measures pending the hearing of the action; the judgment does not report the eventual outcome of that trial.