About the Society: its activities and organisation

Workshops

Twice annually the Society runs a workshop series. The speaker’s paper is circulated in advance of the workshop. At the workshop itself the speaker presents on their paper followed by discussion. Internationally recognised scholars, as well as students at the early stages of their PhDs, have given papers. Academics and researchers based outside Ireland have come especially to Dublin to participate, and workshop papers have been delivered by philosophy and political science lecturers as well as law lecturers. The list of workshops so far is here.

Annual Public Lectures

The Society aims to arrange on a yearly basis for a legal philosopher of international renown to give a public lecture on a topic of their choice. Professor Joseph Raz delivered the inaugural lecture.

Student essay competition

With sponsorship provided by Eversheds O’Donnell Sweeney the IJS runs an essay competition for students of jurisprudence in Ireland. The winning essay is chosen by experts in Jurisprudence who are based outside Ireland. The inaugural essay prize was won by Ms Donna Lyons.

Symposium

Themed symposia are convened on an ad hoc basis. Tom Hickey convened the first of these: a Symposium on Constitutionalism and Legal Theory, which took place at NUI Galway.

Supporting the IJS

With the generous support of the Law Schools at Trinity College Dublin and NUI Galway all the Society’s events have been free to attend and members have never been asked for subscriptions. The generous prize for the Student essay competition is sponsored by Eversheds O’Donnell Sweeney. The existence of this website and the IJS’s communications system is entirely thanks to Daithí Mac Síthigh. (It should be noted that the website and communications are maintained by someone lacking the tech expertise of Daithí and this explains any glitches you encounter.) The Inaugral Public Lecture of the IJS was kindly funded by the Long Room Hub Initiative, Trinity College Dublin.

Who has been involved

The IJS was founded in July 2007. At the founding meeting were Paul Brady, Donal Coffey, Oran Doyle, Eimear Long, Paul O’Connell, and David Prendergast. Also supporting the Society’s founding were Brian Foley, Liz Heffernan, Daithí Mac Síthigh, Tim Murphy, Diarmuid Rossa Phelan, Gerard Quinn, and Des Ryan.

For a list of those who have presented papers to the society, as well as the chairpersons for these events, see here.