IT calls itself El Paso and operates behind a wall of anonymity, but a blog seemingly based in Dundalk has found that even the virtual bandit country of the internet is not above the law.

Dundealgan.blogspot.com, a blog that styles itself as the El Paso Times, is facing closure after making possibly libellous remarks about local business people, artists and politicians such as Dermot Ahern, the Irish minister for foreign affairs.

Last week El Paso Times announced it was being forced to shut down its operations after being served with “very serious legal documents”. It followed a series of vicious attacks on Cathy Maguire, a local singer-songwriter, and came a few days after the High Court in London ordered a woman to pay £10,000 (€14,350) damages to someone she had defamed online. Tracy Williams was the first person in a British chat room to be successfully sued for libel.

Maguire, a folk and country singer, is currently working in Nashville, Tennessee, where she has been invited to co-write alongside industry luminaries such as Pat Alger, Shawn Camp and Kevin Montgomery. The El Paso Times has apparently been publishing material about her since its inception almost two years ago, and she has complained to the gardai, the Equality Authority and the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism about the blog, to no avail.

Gardai have been monitoring the site, which is hosted on the Blogger network owned by Google, since it attacked local TD Dermot Ahern, and plain-clothes detectives will attend a public forum due to be hosted by members of El Paso today at a local hotel. The site gives no indication of who is behind it and the only means of contact is an e-mail address. It is not clear to what extent, if any, it is connected to the domain Dundealgan.com, which is registered to an entity calling itself dundealgan information, based in Willowdale, part of the Bay Estate on the outskirts of Dundalk.

“We have been keeping an eye on the site for some time,” said a senior officer in Dundalk. “But nobody has a clue who is behind it, and defamation is a civil matter, so there is little we can do to help.”

Maguire, who refused to comment, is said to be distraught at the allegations posted about her family. She had decided against issuing civil proceedings in the hope the tirade would cease. But last week Ted Randall, the director of US Operations CMR Radio Network, Nashville, threatened to issue defamation proceedings in America and Ireland on her behalf.

“This is tough on Cathy, but it would take a lot more than these internet thugs to damage her,” said Randall.

Randall posted the legal threat last week on the blog, which has attracted a large following in Co Louth, with locals posting salacious and defamatory remarks about other townspeople. Threatening to apply for a court order forcing Google to disclose the IP address, name, and other identifying information it may have on Dundealgan, Randall said they would then file “a hefty lawsuit against you personally”.

The bloggers replied with a mock apology to Maguire, before proceeding to reissue unsavoury comments about her fathers, brother and uncle. But later it announced that “as a result of very serious legal documents being served on us, the El Paso website will be closed down in the next number of days”.

El Paso Times is savouring the possibility that its closure will be a legal precedent. “The site may also go on to make Irish legal history as it is the first of its kind in this legal jurisdiction,” its editor trumpeted.

It is not the first time Irish bloggers have been the subject of legal writs. Two years ago Gavin Sheridan, a University College Cork student, was threatened with a defamation suit in America after posting a comment about John Gray, author of Men Are from Mars. Sheridan refused to retract the remark, which is still on his site, but agrees that the supposed final frontier of the internet offers little protection.

“Irish bloggers are more careful because libel laws here are so onerous,” said Sheridan. “I am liable not only for what I personally write, but also what everyone else posts on my blog, and material I upload onto my site published elsewhere.

“A disclaimer is meaningless as I am regarded as a publisher, in law. I’m like a newspaper in that respect, except I don’t have the means to defend myself. That is why some bloggers protect their anonymity.”

“In Ireland, you are wide open in terms of libel, but most of the time sites such as the El Paso Times get away with it,” said TJ McIntyre, a lecturer in law and founder of Digital Rights Ireland, an internet advocacy group. “Sites like this are a healthy development. They can publish material that conventional media can’t because of the risk of a libel action.”

The apparent demise of El Paso Times has divided Louth. “It provides a forum for people who wouldn’t otherwise get involved,” said Jim D’Arcy, a Fine Gael councillor for Louth. “The site has a great circulation and is travelling far away from home here in Dundalk.”

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