I recently flew from Amsterdam to Bogotá, Colombia, … North of London, I looked down and saw myself in the summers of 1968 and 1969 as a student working in a factory in Hammersmith. I packed bread on to delivery vans Monday through a half-day Saturday; Saturday afternoons, I scoured the bookshops of Tottenham Court Road for Beat poetry and Henry Miller novels then banned in Ireland.

Tropic of Cancer (Obelisk Press, 1934 | EBSCO | wikipedia | Amazon), a sexually candid fictionalised memoir by Henry Miller (1891-1980) (official site | wikipedia), was banned in the US after its initial publication in Paris in 1934. The same fate befell several of his subsequent novels. In 1961, Barney Rosset (1922-2012) (wikipedia) and his Grove Press sought to publish an edition of Tropic of Cancer in the US. Rosset and Grove were the first publisher of many of the era’s Beat poets and controversial novels (just the kind of book Burke sought out).…

In a similar post a little while ago, I mentioned that I have been co-Principal Investigator in a research group that had prsented a draft Research Outputs and Open Access Bill 2025 (pdf) for the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS). I note from page 20 of the Government Legislation Programme for Autumn 2026 (pdf, via here) that the Heads of an Open Research Bill are in preparation in that Department:

The aim of this draft Bill is to underpin the rights of researchers and their employers and funders to publish publicly-funded research outputs on open access platforms.

This seems like the very Bill proposed by our SCOIR Research Group. The acronym stands for the Secondary rights, Copyright, Open access, Institutional policies, and Rights retention Research Group. It consisted of Frances Madden (TUD) (co-Principal Investigator), Niamh Brennan (TCD), Kaberi Basu (TCD), Arushi Sharma (TCD), and myself, with the assistance of Martin Bradley BL. “Scoir” is an Irish word for “unharness”; and our project aimed to unharness the power of open research.…

The disease of mammoth judgments has infected many (most? all?) other apex and inter/supra-national courts too. Vigorous application of screening mechanisms (such as denying leave to appeal) has reduced the number of cases, thus giving more time to compose long judgments. As time goes on, the set of materials to be considered (including not only prior judgments in the jurisdiction in question, but also relevant judgments in other jurisdictions, and academic discussions of the issues) is rapidly expanding. This increases not only the length of written and oral submissions of counsel but also the volume of underlying materials to be assessed by the judges. Law clerks and judicial researchers ease research (and writing) burdens. And then, of course, the computer has a lot to answer for: it makes writing easier; it permits extensive research; it makes more materials available (we no longer lack unreported judgments; we are not confined to paper materials in libraries); the scourge of cut-and-paste (and keyboard shortcuts) reduces difficulties in citing and quoting materials; it enables defensive rather than sensible footnoting and completism rather than completeness (for example, “see also” ad nauseam); and it encourages the vanity of showing off (Look how much I’ve considered!…

The answer was slow and measured, and the words presumably weighed and chosen with care. “Yes, they would pass muster on the grounds of public order and morality and in the interests of the common good.” (ibid, emphasis added).

In Murphy v Irish Radio and Television Commission [1999] 1 IR 12, 24, [1998] 2 ILRM 360, 372, (28 May 1998) [37]-[44] (doc | pdf) Barrington J (Hamilton CJ; and O’Flaherty, Denham, and Keane JJ concurring) explained that, when there is a restriction on a constitutional right, the State can justify the restriction if it has a good reason for the restriction, and is proportionate to that reason. The ECHR describes these good reasons as legitimate aims, and Barrington J in Murphy adopted that language.…

In principle, when there is a restriction upon a right, there must be a good reason for the restriction, and it must satisfy a standard of review or scrutiny. The restrictions at issue here flow from the power to prohibit the publication of indecent or obscene books and periodicals. The rights engaged by these restrictions are the constitutional protections of freedom of expression and communication. Many reasons have been advanced to justify the restrictions upon these rights, including public morality and the common good.…