Blockchain and Irish Law
How Irish law treats digital assets, smart contracts and on-chain transactions in 2026 — and what the notarial profession does when the ledger and the ledger of record diverge.
Notary Public
Solicitor · Cork
Douglas, Cork, Ireland
The discipline of the notarial act.
Hugh Phelan is a Notary Public in Cork, appointed by the Chief Justice of Ireland and President of the Supreme Court — commissioned for life — and Principal of Phelan Solicitors.
Dual-qualified as a solicitor in Ireland and in England & Wales, with more than twenty years of corporate, commercial and international experience behind every notarial act.
Office
Douglas
East Douglas Street, Cork. Same-day appointments often available.
Commissioned
For life
By the Chief Justice of Ireland and President of the Supreme Court.
Qualified in
Twojurisdictions
Solicitor — Ireland and England & Wales.
Experience
20years +
Corporate, commercial and international.
01
The brief
A notarial practice built on the conventional disciplines of corporate and commercial law — and a long working interest in how new technologies change the legal framework around them.
Phelan Solicitors is one of the leading solicitor firms in Cork. Hugh's notarial work focuses on cross-border corporate transactions, apostille and consular legalisation, power-of-attorney work for overseas use, and the increasing volume of notarial work generated by Brexit and by globally-mobile professionals based in Munster.
The discipline is conservative. The reading is not.
02
Two practice columns
The notarial. The commercial.
The first is a public office of authentication. The second is the corporate and commercial practice that supports it. Both are run from the same Douglas office, by the same person.
Column I
Notarial practice
Notary Public — Cork
A complete notary public service: notarisation, apostille, consular legalisation, power-of-attorney work, corporate notarial services for foreign companies establishing Irish operations. Same-day appointments often available.
Column II
Solicitor practice
Corporate & Commercial
Company law, commercial conveyancing, commercial litigation, cross-border business transactions. Twenty years of experience behind the corporate side of the practice — and behind every corporate notarial act.
03
Articles
Two long-form articles.
Substantial pieces on the way new technologies meet Irish law — written from the practitioner's perspective, not the commentator's.
04
In practice
Counsel to the IMPT executive.
Hugh provides legal counsel to the executive of IMPT — a Dublin-headquartered travel, retail and carbon platform operating in 195 countries with on-chain carbon credit retirement on Ethereum and a native token. The work covers commercial transactions, corporate structuring, and the specific notarial and legal questions a token-issuing global platform presents.
The Chairman & CEO of IMPT is Denis Creighton. The Chief Technology Officer and founder is Michael English.
05
Blog
Working notes — twenty posts.
Ten on the notarial office and how it actually works in Cork. Ten on the corporate and commercial questions a working Irish business has to resolve.
A Gift
For visitors who care about climate change
A small gift, because
climate change matters.
My professional work and my personal climate concern sit alongside each other. I want visitors to this site to have an easy way to act on that — so I'm offering the IMPT hotel-booking platform here at the same price as the major OTAs, with one tonne of CO₂ retired on-chain for every confirmed stay.
IMPT runs a global hotel-booking platform — 1.7 million properties, 195 countries, the same prices as the major OTAs. Every confirmed stay retires one UN-verified tonne of CO2 on the Ethereum blockchain, and 5% comes back to you as Goodness loyalty — for your next stay or a cause you choose.
Find an eco-friendly hotel →
Powered by IMPT · UN-verified climate impact
06
Contact
For notarial appointments and legal enquiries.
Phelan Solicitors, East Douglas Street, Douglas, Co. Cork, Ireland · Mon–Fri 9:00–17:00