Irish Blog Awards 2010

The Irish Blog Awards took place last Saturday in Galway. HRinI was a finalist for the best news/current affairs blog sponsored by Dediserve. The prize in that category rightly went to Maman Poulet, run by the irrepressible Suzy Byrne. We were ably represented by Liam Thornton on the night.

The IBAs were started by Damien Mulley fadó fadó (in internet time at least) and have grown from a relatively small gathering to a large and very fun annual event with numerous side events and the inevitable morning-after brunches. It is, as an event, a real example of how online activity can translate into meaningful off-line interactions and events. It is also an enormous undertaking organisationally for which Damien and the whole team deserve a great deal of gratitude. I was pleased this year to be a judge in the IBAs and I can attest to the quality of the many blogs I judged along the way, finding myself almost never in a position of awarding a poor mark.

Blogging is an important activity—it is a way for people to express their own views, a way to share emotions, a way to shed light on events or perspectives that perhaps do not make waves in the main stream media, a way to present news and current affairs with a different audience or perspective in mind. Academic group blogging is really beginning to take off in Ireland, with the charge perhaps being led by Irish Economy and now very ably joined by Political Reform. As a group academic blog, HRinI was conceived of as a way to do four things: (1) to aggregate information about Irish scholarship and events in human rights; (2) to provide quick-reaction commentary on what is happening in Ireland from a human rights perspective; (3) to create a space where the academy, practitioners, NGOs and all other interested parties can interact; and (4) to bring scholarship and legal commentary out of the university and democratise it to the extent that a dozen or so (mainly early career) academics can.

We certainly hope to continue to fulfil these functions over the next year. As always, we are delighted to hear suggestions and feedback from readers either in the comments here, on our facebook page, on twitter, or by contacting us (all our details are here).

HRinI: Finalist in the Irish Blog Awards 2010

The wonderful people at the Irish Blog Awards have now announced the finalists for the awards and we are delighted to see that HRinI has made it to the final five in the ‘Best News/Current Affairs Blog’. Thanks so much to the organisers, judges and our readers. Thanks also, of course, to dediserve who is sponsoring this category and congratulations to all of the finalist blogs.

The other blogs in the news/current affairs category are

• David McWilliams
• Maman Poulet
• Bock the Robber
• Splintered Sunrise

HRinI Shortlisted in Irish Blog Awards

We are delighted to see that HRinI has been shortlisted in two categories in the Irish Blog Awards: best political blog and best news/current affairs blog. Many thanks to the sponsors and the judges of the Awards. Thanks also to all of our fantastic guest contributors over the past six months. A hearty welcome to anyone who is coming here from the IBA website. Enjoy reading.

HRinI Longlisted for the 2010 Irish Blog Awards

We were delighted yesterday to see that HRinI features seven times in the long-list nominations for the 2010 Irish Blog Awards, sponsored by all of these wonderful and generous people and the brain child of the unstoppable Damien Mulley. We would like to thank anyone who nominated us, and welcome people coming here for the first time from the nominations site. We hope you enjoy reading the blog. As a team we also want to congratulate Máiréad Enright for her post on the Hijab (nominated for best post) and a guest contributor Tom Hickey for his post on religious patronage, republicanism and Irish primary schools.

HRinI has been nominated in the following categories:

1. Best Political/News Blog
2. Best Group Blog
3. Best Political Blog
4. Best Specialist Blog
5. Best Newcomer
6. Best Blog Post: Guest Contribution—Hickey on Religious Patronage of Irish Primary Schools and Republicanism
7. Best Blog Post: Primer on the Hijab Debate 2009 (by Máiréad Enright)

If you are visiting for the first time you might want to click here to see the first post on the blog, posted on 31 August 2009. Since then there have been 400 posts (incl. tens of guest posts catalogued here), over 50,000 visitors and some changes in the core contributors team as people’s ‘offline’ commitments overtook the time available to them to write for HRinI. The fundamental idea of the blog, however, remains the same: to provide a place where human rights lawyers with a connection to Ireland can reflect on the legal dimensions of human rights controversies in Ireland (primarily) or elsewhere.

Happy reading, and congratulations to all the nominees!

Addition: The Awards are seeking judges to convert the raw long-list into a short-list.  You can apply here.