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History of
the Irish Jurist
Now in its fifth
series, the Irish Jurist
is
Ireland
’s oldest and most distinguished legal periodical.
The title Irish Jurist
(together with the Irish
Jurist Reports) was
first published in 1848. It appeared initially as a weekly journal,
from 1848 to 1855, and thereafter twice monthly from 1855 to 1867.
The journal was divided into two parts.
The first contained articles on legal topics, rules and
orders of the courts. The
second consisted of law reports and a digest of cases decided by the
courts in Ireland.
As their names
suggest, the second series, the New
Irish Jurist Reports,
which ran from 1867-1901, was confined to law reporting; whereas the
short-lived third series, New
Irish Jurist and Local Government Review, which ran from 1901-1904, was, in its
review section, also a law
journal in the conventional sense. The
precursor to the current series – the fourth, appeared in 1935 as
the Irish Jurist with Reports,
once again combining the Jurist’s original role of legal
periodical with that of law reporting.
The fourth series ran from 1935-1965. It
has been said that its principal achievement lay in providing an
accessible forum for airing issues of concern to legal practitioners
in
Ireland
.
The current series
was inaugurated under the editorship of the late Professor John
Maurice Kelly in 1966. Professor
of Roman Law and Jurisprudence at UCD, Professor Kelly was a leading
member of a consortium that had acquired the Jurist Publishing
Company, the owner of the title to the journal.
Between 1966 and 1972, Professor Kelly transformed the Irish
Jurist from a national practitioner’s journal into a scholarly
journal of national and international importance.
The journal’s longstanding law reporting function was
abandoned in favour of two broad sections devoted to scholarly
material on modern and historical jurisprudence, the latter modelled
on the Zeitschrift der Savigny
für Rechtsgesichte. The
revamped journal immediately began to attract contributions from
leading scholars in
Ireland
and Britain
and the principal civilian jurisdictions, and had acquired a
significant international subscription list by the end of Professor
Kelly’s tenure as editor.
The late Professor Nial
Osborough succeeded John Kelly as editor in 1972.
A legal historian with a wide-ranging interest in
contemporary legal developments, Professor Osborough consolidated
the Jurist’s founding
philosophy during the period of rapid expansion in academic legal
education in the 1970s and 80s, publishing work on every department
of Irish law as well as a string of important contributions on
classical and comparative jurisprudence. During his long tenure,
Professor Osborough edited twenty volumes of the Jurist,
stepping down in 1994. Highlights
of his editorship include his generous nurturing of young authors,
many of whom went on to distinguished careers as legal writers and
practitioners; and the publication of volumes xxv-xxvii as a Festschrift
for John Kelly following his untimely death in 1991.
Professor Finbarr
McAuley became editor in 1995. A
strong believer in the Jurist’s
original academic mission, Professor McAuley established a
distinguished international Editorial Board reflective of the
journal’s publishing history in the fields of modern and
historical jurisprudence. The new Board provided the journal with a
cadre of distinguished international referees, and acted as an
important source of contributions from scholars outside Ireland, especially in the field of modern
jurisprudence, and was instrumental in sourcing contributions.
Professor McAuley also commenced the link with Round Hall
Sweet & Maxwell, now Thomson Reuters, who continue to publish
the Jurist for the Irish
Jurist Publishing Company. Professor
McAuley produced fourteen volumes of the journal, including a
Festschrift for Professor Geoffrey Hand (volume xxxi).
He relinquished the editorship in 2009.
Professor
Paul O’Connor took over as editor in 2009.
The Irish
Jurist is owned by the The Irish Jurist Designated
Activity Company, and
is published by Thomson Reuters.
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