printing and publishing

printing and publishing. Printing was a late arrival in Ireland, introduced by government for administrative and propaganda purposes. The first book, printed in Dublin in 1551 by Humphrey Powell, was The Boke of Common Praier. For almost a century there was never more than a single press in operation, and the output was small.

From 1604 government control was exercised through the king's printer's patent, which granted to the holder a monopoly over all printing and bookselling. In theory this monopoly held, except for a short period in the 1640s, until 1732; in fact the stranglehold it created was effectively ended by the legal challenge offered in 1680–1 by Joseph Ray, permitting a rapid expansion thereafter in the book trades.

In the provinces during the troubled 1640s the propaganda needs of the warring factions of king, parliament, and Confederate Catholics led to presses being established in Waterford (1643), Kilkenny (1646), and Cork (1648). We have firm evidence of a press in only one other town in the 17th century—Belfast (1694).

In 1670 the few booksellers working in Dublin joined together with two other trades, the cutlers and the painter‐stainers, to found the Guild of St Luke. Although it continued in existence until 1841 the guild never really became a regulatory force.

The British Copyright Act of 1709 did not extend to Ireland, and so cheap reprints of London publications became the staple of the Dublin book trade. The 18th century proved to be the most successful period in its history. The printer‐bookseller predominated, George Faulkner being the prime example. Specialist printers, like Samuel Powell, were the exception.

Up to the early 1780s most of the books printed were sold on the domestic market. When export restrictions were fully lifted in 1783 there was a huge increase in overseas trade, especially to America. Wilson's Dublin Directories record an expansion in book trade businesses from 70 in 1781 to 118 in 1793. But the 1790s saw a disastrous decline, the crucial factor being the expense and lack of paper. A wave of key figures emigrated to America. The decline was compounded by the fact that many in the book trade were members of the United Irishmen, and were imprisoned or exiled after the insurrection of 1798.

Beyond the capital only the cities could support specialist printer‐booksellers, Eugene Swiney and James Haly in Cork, and the Blows and the Joys in Belfast being examples. The establishment of provincial newspapers was the impetus to the spread of the printing press beyond the main cities. By 1800 presses had been established in 34 provincial towns.

The output of these provincial presses was of local interest, and they seldom undertook reprints of London works. Thus they were not affected by the extension of the Copyright Act to Ireland in 1801, and the period up to 1840 was one of further expansion. The loss of the reprint trade, however, had a devastating effect on the Dublin printers. The publication of books plummeted 80 per cent, it is said, in the first half of the century and booksellers relied heavily on the sale of imported books. John Cumming was the largest importer in this period and a publisher of note. The printers who survived best were those that had government contracts, or were official printers to learned bodies or societies.

The publication of William Carleton's very popular Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry by Curry & Company of Dublin in 1830 was a watershed in the revival of native publishing. It proved that an Irish writer could be successful without having to appear under a London imprint. The lesson was learned by James Duffy, who in the following decade published many of the authors of the Young Ireland movement in his series The Library of Ireland. Also in the 1840s the long‐established Belfast firm of Simms & M'Intyre took on the British market with their revolutionary Parlour Library series of cheap fiction.

Parallel with these developments, from 1831 onwards the commissioners of national education (see National Schools) started to issue their schoolbooks, Alexander Thom being the principal printer. Their phenomenal success led to a large export trade to Britain and the colonies.

The recovery of the book trade was interrupted by the devastations of the Great Famine of 1845–9, and some of the largest firms in Dublin went bankrupt, Milliken, Folds, Coyne, and Curry among them.

Provincial presses suffered a decline in the second half of the century. The improved postal service and the spread of the railway network meant that the bigger towns could supply the printing needs of wider areas. However, improved communications also allowed the larger Irish firms to print and publish for the British market and the colonies. Starting in 1846 James McGlashan published jointly with many of the large British houses, and Michael Henry Gill, at the Dublin University Press, printed for many of them. The Dublin branch of W. H. Smith, booksellers and newsagents (taken over in 1886 by Easons), established a nationwide wholesale network. Printing works, such as Marcus Ward and Guys of Cork, both founded in the 1840s, and later Bairds in Belfast (1862), were established and expanded over the years.

The second half of the century was one of stability and steady growth, but it ended, and the new century began, with the trade in the slough of a general economic depression. The Irish literary revival did encourage the foundation of Maunsel and the Dun Emer/Cuala Press, but these were peripheral to the main trends. The circumstances of the First World War led to rampant inflation in printers' wages (265 per cent between 1913 and 1920) and huge rises in printing costs.

The depression continued after independence in 1922. The Censorship of Publications Act (1926) tempered any adventurousness that publishers may have had. The dominant Dublin houses were the Talbot Press, Duffy, and Gills, whose output was a mixture of schoolbooks, light literature, and Catholic piety. The Dundalgan Press in Dundalk was one of the few provincial houses undertaking any significant publication. Irish‐language publishing (e.g. An Gúm, the government's imprint, founded in 1926, and Sáirséal agus Dill, started in 1945), buoyed up by state encouragement, could afford to be more innovative.

The poor standard of Irish typography was a recurrent complaint throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. A beacon of good taste at this time was Colm Ó Lochlainn's Three Candles Press, founded in 1926.

During the Economic War large tariffs on imports led to a printing boom. But with the settlement of 1938 the industry was thrown back into recession. Unemployment among Dublin printers was six times higher than in previous years. Stasis continued during and after the Second World War, the foundation of the Mercier Press being an exception.

Many Irish authors still had to go to London to be published. Liam Miller founded the Dolmen Press (1951–87) to provide an outlet for them. At the same time his high standards of typography lifted the design standards in the industry as a whole.

Publishing languished in the 1950s and 1960s. The recurrent need for textbooks meant that the educational houses weathered the storm better than the general trade houses. In contrast, by 1960 the printing trade was booming, riding the crest of industrial revival. However, the revolution then happening in printing technology was soon to disrupt matters. The full impact in Ireland took place during the oil crises of the mid‐1970s, and led to recession and much industrial unrest.

In 1974 one of the largest firms, the Irish University Press, went bankrupt. Ironically its failure helped fuel the revival in Irish publishing then under way. Several of its redundant staff went on to establish their own publishing ventures, Irish Academic Press, Wolfhound, and the periodical Books Ireland among them. At the same time the Blackstaff Press was founded in Belfast, to be followed a few years later by Appletree. The revival can be attributed to improvements in economic conditions and educational levels, and to changes in printing technology. During the 1980s the number of publishers increased by a third.

In 1970 Clé, the Irish Book Publishers' Association, was founded to promote the output of the industry. Centralized distribution was an innovation of the 1980s, and Gill & Macmillan Distribution now handles the output of the largest trade publishers. In 1990 the demand from the publishing industry was such that the first specialist book printer, ColourBooks, could be launched and has proved a success thus far.

Bibliography

Farmer, Tony , A Brief History of Clé [the Irish Publishers' Association]1970–1987 (1995)
Pollard, M. , Dublin's Trade in Books 1550–1800 (1989)
Wheeler, W. G. , The Spread of Provincial Printing in Ireland up to 1850, Irish Booklore, 4/1 (1978)

Vincent Kinane