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VII. 



THE EARLIEST PRINTING IN DUBLIN, IN THE IRISH, LATIN, 

 GREEK, HEBREW, FRENCH, ITALIAN, SAXON, ^YELSH, 

 SYRIAC, ARMENIAN, AND ARABIC LANGUAGES. 



By E. R. McC. DIX. 



Read nth April. Ordered for Publication ISth April. Published Julv 16, 1910. 



Introduction. 



It may be of some interest to place on record the earliest printing of classical, 

 European, and Oriental languages in Dublin ; and this paper is an attempt 

 to do this in a preliminary way. 



When citing Talbot Baines Reed as my authority, I quote from his 

 "History of the Old English Letter Foundries," with Notes, London, 1887 

 (E. Stock), a standard work on the subject. 



Irish. 



The first type (other than the ordinary Roman type) used in Dublin was 

 that for the purpose of printing in Irish, and is known as the Elizabethan 

 fount of Irish type. It was used in 1571 to print the well-known Catechism 

 and a poem ; and there is evidence that it was also used to print a 

 proclamation ; and subsequently it was used to print an edition of the 

 New Testament, 1602-3, and the Prayer Book, in 1608-9 ; Bedell's "A B C," 

 in 1630, etc. But this fount, it is well known, was very defective in 

 representing the Gaelic characters. The letter "a" in it was simply 

 indicated by an italic "a" and not by a Gaelic " A". There are, in fact, nine 

 Roman and two italic letters in the fount. I beg to offer as a matter of 

 conjecture that this was not a fount cast for Irish type at all, but was 

 simply a fount of Anglo-Saxon type which, being in some letters identical 

 with the Gaelic letters, was used to print the Irish alphabet and other works 

 in Irish. Archbishop Parker was much interested in Anglo-Saxon literatu)-e, 

 and for him John Day, the well-known London printer, about 1567 cut 

 the first Saxon types which were used for printing editions of the Saxon 



R.I.A. PROO., VOL. XXVIII,, SECT. 0. [23] 



