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Is my site blocked in Ireland?
Irish internet providers block websites and servers when the High Court orders them to: copyright holders such as film studios, the Premier League and UEFA ask for these orders, and since February 2026 the gambling regulator can ask too. A legitimate site can be caught if it shares a server address with a pirate stream that eir, Virgin Media, Sky and Vodafone block during matches (a risk the court accepted in 2020 was low), or if the visitor's mobile or broadband connection has an adult-content or security filter switched on. The football block lists are confidential, so you find out by testing from a connection on each of those providers while a match is on, or by searching OONI Explorer, a public archive of network tests.
Sources: RTÉ, 3 April 2017 · William Fry, 3 December 2020 · The Irish Times, 21 July 2025 · Law Reform Commission, Gambling Regulation Act 2024 (revised), checked November 2026 · Vodafone Ireland, Secure Net, November 2026 · OONI, blocking fingerprints, November 2026
Check your page in Germany, Poland or Norway
We cannot test providers in Ireland yet. Enter a page and pick a country: we open it through connections of the main providers there (home and mobile; mobile only in Norway) and tell you provider by provider whether it opens. Free, about a minute, a few checks per hour.
Who can have a site blocked in Ireland?
Copyright blocks come from High Court orders against the providers that rights holders name. In June 2013 the court ordered six providers, including Vodafone and the provider Three, to block The Pirate Bay within 30 days, at its current address and any new one. In April 2017 it ordered nine providers, among them eir, Sky, Vodafone, Virgin Media and two companies of the Three group, to block three sites that linked to pirated film and TV streams. It refused eir's request for a monthly cap, so there was no limit on how many new domain names and IP addresses (the numeric addresses of servers) eir could be told to block each month. Because each order names its providers, a block can apply on one provider and not on another.
Sources: TheJournal.ie, 12 June 2013 · RTÉ, 3 April 2017
What happens during Premier League and UEFA matches?
In July 2019 the High Court granted the Premier League the first Irish order to block live streams, and UEFA got a similar order in 2020. Both apply to eir, Virgin Media, Sky and Vodafone; Three is not named. In July 2025 the court extended both for the 2025/26 and 2026/27 seasons, so as of November 2026 they cover the current season. The providers block the IP addresses of streaming servers on a confidential list; UEFA's lawyer said the list is sent to them twice during each match. When the first order was made in 2019, the court heard that blocking would be switched off after each match and set up again each week, and that people accused of illegal streaming could ask the court to unblock any of their legitimate material.
Sources: The Irish Times, 15 July 2019 · Level Law, 6 November 2020 · The Irish Times, 14 July 2025 · The Irish Times, 21 July 2025
Can a match-time block hit my site?
Blocking an IP address stops every site at that address. A site that shares its address with a blocked stream, for example on shared hosting (one server rented out to many sites) or a CDN (a network that serves many sites from the same addresses), would also fail for eir, Virgin Media, Sky and Vodafone customers until the block lifts. Up to July 2025 the Irish courts had seen little sign of it. In 2020 sworn statements told the court there was no evidence that the Premier League order had blocked anything legitimate, and the court accepted evidence that UEFA's order carried a low risk of doing so. When extending UEFA's order in July 2025, the judge referred to "a minuscule number of complaints about the blocking which were proved to be unfounded". In Spain, OONI estimated that at least 554,507 of the 9.2 million domains it checked (about 5.8%) were hosted on IP addresses blocked during LaLiga match broadcasts between 1 January and 1 June 2026. Of these, 90.4% were on Cloudflare, which paid for part of the study; see Collateral blocking in Europe.
Sources: Level Law, 6 November 2020 · William Fry, 3 December 2020 · The Irish Times, 21 July 2025 · OONI, 30 June 2026
Will my betting or prediction-market site be blocked?
Since 1 July 2026 every online betting operator needs a licence from the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) to operate in the Irish market: a remote (online) betting licence, or a remote betting intermediary licence for betting exchanges. Since 5 February 2026 the GRAI can ask the High Court to order internet providers and app stores to block betting offered without a licence, and banks to stop payments into and out of the operator's bank accounts unless the court gives permission (section 75 of the Gambling Regulation Act 2024). As of 11 November 2026, these orders did not reach casino-style games or lotteries: the bans on offering those without a licence (section 67(2) and (3)) were not yet in force, and gaming licences for casino-style games were expected in 2027. In urgent cases the GRAI can ask for a temporary order without telling the other side first. The GRAI's chief executive has said that prediction markets count as betting.
Sources: A&L Goodbody, 20 May 2026 · Law Reform Commission, Gambling Regulation Act 2024, sections 2, 67, 75 and 85, checked November 2026 · The Irish Times, 14 September 2026 · TheJournal.ie (PA), 19 July 2026
As of 4 November 2026, the GRAI had not gone to court. Stake, an online casino and sports betting site, cut off Irish users in September 2026 after contact with the GRAI. The GRAI said two prediction markets had also blocked visitors from Ireland after its interventions; The Irish Times understood them to be Polymarket and Kalshi. On 4 November 2026 the GRAI's chief executive, Anne Marie Caulfield, indicated that most unlicensed operators halted their operations after a first warning telling them to stop. "We have not been to the High Court," she said.
Sources: The Irish Times, 14 September 2026 · The Irish Times, 4 November 2026
How can I check my site, and which Irish filters can block it?
OONI Explorer, an archive of tests that volunteers run with the OONI Probe app, shows results from Irish connections, but only for sites someone in Ireland has tested.
Source: OONI, FAQ, November 2026
OONI's catalogue of known block pages includes one from Three, at m.three.ie/adult-content: an adult-content filter whose page tells the visitor that to turn it off they must verify their age. OONI's example measurement dates from 2019. Vodafone sells Secure Net, a security filter for its broadband and mobile customers that shows a warning page, with a choice to continue, when it judges a site unsafe. When a visitor in Ireland reports a problem, ask for their provider, whether they were on mobile data or home internet, and the time: a failure only on eir, Virgin Media, Sky or Vodafone during a match is worth checking against the match schedule.
Sources: OONI, blocking fingerprints, November 2026 · Vodafone Ireland, Secure Net, November 2026
We do not measure Ireland yet; demand decides the order in which we add countries. A check there would have to run on eir, Virgin Media, Sky and Vodafone during Premier League and UEFA matches, and on connections with an adult-content or security filter switched on. Today linkspect is open in early access in Germany, Poland and Norway.
Facts checked on 11 November 2026.