Johnny Lyons writes: I am thrilled to take up the role of managing editor with the drb, a journal of which I have long been an avid reader and to which, in more recent times, I have been a proud contributor. The drb has made an incalculable contribution to Irish intellectual life and I intend to continue in this tradition while attracting a new wave of contributors and readers to its pages.
In that spirit, I will publish essays, book reviews and blogs that exemplify the values readers have come to expect from the drb, such as a commitment to lucid, accessible prose as well as a wish to show the crucial importance of ideas in our lives. My immediate objectives include commissioning important thinkers from Ireland and abroad, including new and younger writers, enhancing the drb’s online presence – website and social media – increasing the number of issues per year from three to four and increasing the number of blogs published between issues.
Another priority relates to one of the distinctive features of the drb, namely that its content is entirely free and accessible. Preserving this positive feature while ensuring the future welfare of the review will require that non-subscription sources of revenue be expanded.
Other activities to be pursued further downstream include producing podcasts and establishing an annual drb lecture series.
The first piece of writing I ever published was an unsolicited book review in the drb in 2018. Seeing that review appear in a journal I admire was one of the happiest moments of my life. I believe it is vital that the drb continues to be an outlet for new voices as well as for more established ones and seeks to get the right balance between them.
I am, of course, mindful of the challenges that come with editing a periodical in the current climate. Nobody needs reminding that we live in a world increasingly antithetical to the intellectual values and cultural ideals which inform the drb. And yet it is precisely this troubling development that underlines the need for an outlet which steadfastly champions the life of the mind and advocates the importance of ideas in preserving and developing the social good.
I am very grateful to the drb’s publishers, Maurice Earls and Enda O’Doherty, for the honour of my appointment and for the wonderful opportunity to be part of such a distinguished review.
28/10/2025
