r 10 ] 



II. 



FEINTING IN COEK IN THE FIEST QUAETEE OF THE 

 EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY (1701-1725). 



By E. E. McC. DIX. 



Read May 9. Publislied August 15, 1921. 



Ix April, 1912, I liad the pleasure of laying before the Academy a paper on 

 " Printing in Cork in the Seventeenth Century," with a list of all recorded 

 printing there in that century. I have not since obtained any additions to 

 that list, but it has occurred to me to continue the subject a little further 

 and to sliow how, slowly, but surely, the printing press was developed in 

 Cork in the succeeding twenty-five years, and to contribute a similar list for 

 such period which will be a suitable " Supplement " to my former paper ; and 

 such accordingly my present contribution purports to be. 



1'he list, to a large extent, speaks for itself, but a few observations upon 

 it may be useful. 



First, then, so far as researches have gone, with the doubtful exception 

 of the first appearing of The Cork Newslettar in 1707 or 1708, there is no 

 extant item of Cork printing prior to 1714. Then we find there a printer, 

 George Bennett, and a specimen of his press issued that year, namely, a single 

 issue of a little periodical called The Idler, No. 1 . We do not know if it even 

 reached a second number. It was not, correctly speaking, a newspaper. It 

 might, perhaps, be more correctly designated a news-sheet or letter, but the first 

 actual Cork newspaper was the one already alluded to. The Cork Newsletter, 

 and which, 1 think, certainly appeared in 1715 or 1716, if not at the earlier 

 date above suggested. Wlien George Bennett ^rs< came to Cork as a printer 

 we do not yet know, and some of the extant pieces of Cork printing are 

 undated, and can only be conjecturally ascribed to certain years, though such 

 conjectures are probably accurate enough. In 1716 we find the name of 

 John Bedivood coupled with that of George Bennett as a Cork bookseller ; and 

 some seven years later Eedwood is given as the 'printer of a book or two. In 

 the year 1716, or at end of 1715, also appeared a newspaper, or rather news- 

 letter, called The Free-Holder, of which one copy is extant. This was 



