Foreword

• Date: 01 January 2012

Foreword

The Honourable Mr Justice Michael Peart

Judge of the High Court of Ireland

Judge in Residence at the Hibernian Law Journal 2012–2013

When launching the inaugural volume of the Hibernian Law Journal at the

dawn of the present millennium, the Founding Editors in their Introduction let

it be known that they would in the main present the writings of trainee and

qualified solicitors, junior academics and students. This admirable and

worthwhile ambition has been achieved in subsequent volumes, including this

most recent one. The fact that they have been able, during the twelve years

since the journal’s inception, to give the light of day to articles of such variety

of subject matter and of such consistent merit is testament not only to the

energies of the editorial committee, but also to the ability and standards of

academic excellence attained nowadays by law students throughout the length

and breadth of Ireland, who have clearly espoused Alexander Pope’s

admonition in his Essay on Criticism, uttered by him in 1709 at the tender age

of twenty one, that “a little learning is a dangerous thing”!

Articles such as those to be found in this volume demonstrate the point

that education and learning is not about the force-feeding of information

into the student’s memory for later regurgitation into an examination script

for marking. Such information does not constitute knowledge in its true

sense, and remains stored for a short time, only to be soon forgotten. It

remains undigested and has provided no nourishment of long term value. It

has been acquired by a process of indoctrination rather than a process of

education. The word ‘education’ derives from the Latin ‘educere’ and means

the bringing forth of something or leading it out, rather than putting

something in. That is not to say that what knowledge one acquires has

always been latent and undiscovered within ourselves. But each individual

has the capacity to develop his or her potential from resources within.

Sometimes this process of education is assisted by a mentor or teacher who

encourages that potential to emerge, but often it emerges from ourselves

unaided by others. The student must by the facility of an inquisitive mind

research, question, probe, doubt, examine and eventually understand and

own the subject. Only then is mastery acquired. The scale of the task facing

the serious student is described by Montaigne in his Essays thus: “Learning

must not only lodge with us: we must marry her”. A reading of the articles

in the present volume shows that the authors have gone that far!

Most of the authors within this volume are trainee solicitors. By now

they will have endured or enjoyed many years of study and training. Those

years of study are viewed by some less fortunate as years of privilege when

students can indulge themselves on some voyage of discovery without

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