It is exciting news that there is to be a new online peer-reviewed Irish law journal, the Irish Law Quarterly. (Don’t be cynical: it is exciting news; and the world – or at least Ireland – really does need another one). According to the home page:

The ILQ is an innovative journal which aims at broad coverage of legal issues, national and international, both purely doctrinal and interdisciplinary. We aim at a diversity of high quality discussion of the law from any angle. Both commentary on current matters and more considered pieces are invited.

The ILQ is run by members of the Faculty of Law, UCC; and it is supported by a grant from the National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (NAIRTL – I have a similar list in the comments to this post). Contributions are encouraged and readers are needed. Both will benefit: the ILQ will consist of the full mix of articles, review articles, book reviews, notes and comments, and in doing so it will provide another outlet for academic scholarship and considered debate about important legal topics.

Publication will be online (and, as a bonus, the website has a wonderful collection of links to other similar online journals). This is undoubtedly a good thing. But although I fully support this kind of open online publication, I have one quibble; it seems that publication is only to be in pdf format – now, pdf is a good thing if you want to print it out, and it is often a good thing if you want to read onscreen. However, in my view, it is not so good if you want to navigate on screen. For that, a html version is much better. In a perfect world, the ILQ would come in both flavours; but this is a very minor quibble about what is otherwise a very exciting development.

Read the website, email the journal, write something for it, and read it when it’s published. Long may it prosper!