IRISH PAGES is a all-Ireland, biannual journal, edited in Belfast and publishing, in equal measure, writing from Ireland and overseas.
Its policy is to publish poetry, short fiction, essays, creative non-fiction, memoir, essay reviews, nature-writing, translated work, literary journalism, and other autobiographical, historical, religious and scientific writing of literary distinction. There are no standard reviews or narrowly academic articles. Irish Language and Ulster Scots writing are published in the original, with English translations or glosses.
Each issue includes a number of regular features: From the Irish Archive, an extract of writing from a non-contemporary Irish writer, accompanied by a brief biographical note; In Other Words, a selection of translated work from a particular country; and The Publishing Scene, a commissioned piece taking a critical look at some aspect of the literary world in Ireland, Britain or the United States. Each issue also contains a portfolio of work from a leading photographer.
IRISH PAGES is a non-partisan, non-sectarian, culturally ecumenical, and wholly independent journal. It seeks to create a novel literary space in the North adequate to the unfolding cultural potential of the new political dispensation. The magazine is cognisant of the need to reflect in its pages the various meshed levels of human relations: the regional (Ulster), the national (Ireland and Britain), the continental (the whole of Europe), and the global.
The sole criteria for inclusion in the journal are the distinction of the writing and the integrity of the individual voice. Equal editorial attention is given to established, emergent and new writers. IRISH PAGES does not associate itself with any prize, award, competition, “best-of” ranking selection, fundraising initiative, or other literary promotion that vitiates against the independence of taste and judgment.
With a print-run now standing at 3,000, IRISH PAGES represents — uniquely for the island — the combination of a large general readership with outstanding writing from both Ireland and overseas. Increasingly, the journal is also read widely outside Ireland and Britain, with a sizable number of subscribers in North America, Continental Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
