Received a Defamation Solicitor’s Letter: What Now

A defamation solicitor’s letter is designed to alarm. It quotes something you posted, reviewed, said or wrote, calls it defamatory, cites the Defamation Act 2009, and demands removal, an apology and often money by a date a fortnight away. Some of those letters are well founded. Many are stronger on tone than on law, and the difference is not visible until the letter is read against the Act. This guide is for the defendant: what to do in the first week, what to check before replying, and how the Act as amended on 1 March 2026 lets a weak case be closed cheaply and a strong one be defended.

1. Do Not Reply in Anger

The letter will provoke a reply in your head within minutes. Do not send it. Anything you write now — to the complainant, to their solicitor, to a group chat or to your followers — is a further publication, and it will be quoted back to you in the next letter or in court. Do not post about the letter. Do not contact the complainant directly. Do not ring the solicitor who sent it to argue the point; they act for the other side and nothing you say helps you. The letter sets a deadline, usually of seven to fourteen days, and that is enough time to take advice and send a reply that improves your position rather than one that worsens it.

2. Keep Your Own Copy Before You Remove Anything

Removing the content is often the right first move, but not before you have your own screenshot with the URL, date and time visible, and a copy of the thread it sat in. The letter will have paraphrased the words in the way most damaging to you; the actual post may be shorter, hedged, plainly an opinion, or addressed to fewer people than the letter claims. If you delete without keeping a copy, the complainant holds the only record and you are arguing from memory. Removal itself is not an admission. If you remove, say so in the reply, and say it was done without admission of liability.

3. Read the Letter Against Section 6

Section 6 defines the tort: a statement that tends to injure a person’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society, published to at least one person other than the plaintiff, that identifies the plaintiff. Every one of those is the complainant’s to prove, so check each against the letter. Does it quote the exact words, or characterise them? Does it say when and where they were first published? Does it say who, other than the complainant, saw them? A direct message that only the complainant read is not published. Does it explain how the statement identifies the complainant, and if you did not name them, who would have known? And is the complainant a person or a company? Since 1 March 2026 section 12 provides that a statement about a body corporate is not defamatory unless it has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to its reputation, meaning serious financial loss for a body trading for profit. A company’s letter that does not say what it lost is a letter that has not yet made out a claim.

4. Check the Date

Section 38 gives one year from the date of first publication, extendable by the court to a maximum of two years only where the interests of justice require it, which the courts apply strictly. Section 11 gives one cause of action for all publications of the same statement, so time runs from the first publication, not from the day the complainant found it. A letter about a post from fourteen months ago is a letter about a claim the court may not allow to be brought at all. Note the date, because it is the first thing a solicitor will ask, and work it through on the Time Limit Calculator. The period is suspended only while a specified ADR procedure, a Press Council complaint or a right of reply under the Broadcasting Act, is running, which is rarely relevant to a social media post.

5. Which Defence Fits

The defences in the Act are sets of facts, and the question in the first week is which set you actually have the evidence for. Truth (section 16) is complete but yours to prove: gather the documents, messages and witnesses now. Honest opinion (section 20) covers a statement recognisable as opinion, honestly held, based on facts stated or indicated that are true or privileged; separate the lines of your post into fact and opinion and see which column is heavier. Qualified privilege (section 18) covers a statement you had a duty or interest in making to someone with a corresponding interest, such as a reference, a grievance or a report to the right person, and is lost where the publication was excessive or made with malice (section 19). The new section 18(1A) privilege covers a retailer’s good-faith inquiry whether goods were paid for. Fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest (section 26 as substituted) and innocent publication (section 27) cover narrower ground. Every defence, with the facts each needs, is in defences to defamation: truth, honest opinion and privilege.

6. The Two Cheap Exits: Apology and Offer of Amends

If the statement cannot be defended, the Act is kinder to the defendant who says so early than people expect. An apology under section 24 is not an admission of liability and may be relied on in mitigation of damages, so a prompt, well-worded apology costs nothing in the liability sense and often closes the matter outright. An offer of amends under sections 22 and 23 is the formal version: an offer to publish a correction and apology, which since the 2026 Act must have the same or similar prominence as the original, and to pay compensation and costs as agreed or as determined by the court. It must be made before the defence is delivered. If the complainant refuses it, it is a defence, lost only where you knew or were reckless as to whether the statement was false and defamatory, and your conduct after the offer is relevant to costs. The mechanics are in offer of amends after the 2026 Act. The wording of both matters: an apology that concedes a meaning the words did not carry concedes more than the claim could have proved.

7. The Reply

The reply goes through a solicitor, inside the deadline, and it does four things. It records what the letter has not established: the words as actually published, the limited audience, the absence of identification, the serious harm the company has not shown, the date. It states the defence you rely on, in outline, without handing over the evidence. It says what has been done, which is usually that the content has been removed without admission. And it makes whatever offer you have decided to make, whether an apology in agreed terms or an offer of amends, or it makes none. It does not argue, insult, threaten a counterclaim you do not have, or explain your side of the story at length. A reply that reads like a defence closes more matters than a reply that reads like a grievance.

8. If Proceedings Issue

Most letters do not become proceedings, and most proceedings settle: in 2024 the Circuit Court heard 228 defamation cases to the High Court’s 61, and most Circuit Court claims settle before hearing. If a summons arrives, the Circuit Court’s jurisdiction is €75,000 and it can grant a declaratory order under section 28 that the statement was false and defamatory, a correction order under section 30 and a prohibition order under section 33. High Court actions commenced on or after 1 March 2026 are decided by a judge alone. Check that a statutory declaration under section 34K accompanies the originating document, because the claimant’s solicitor was obliged to inform them of the Press Council and right of reply options before issuing. Costs in court generally follow the result, so the defendant who loses can be ordered to pay the other side’s costs as well as damages, and that arithmetic is what settlement discussions are about. The full defence-side analysis is on our page on defending a defamation claim.