124 



Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Irisli Confederation established printing presses at Kilkenny and 

 Waterford, then under their jurisdiction, and appointed Thomas 

 Bourke as their 'chief printer. The type and machinery for these 

 presses appear to have been brought from Tlanders.^ After Dublin came 

 under the rule of the Parliament of England Bladen was still employed 

 to execute the Governmental printing in Ireland. He was prohibited 

 from printing any matter without the sanction of the Council of 

 State. 2 



On the restoration of Charles II. the office of King's Printer in 

 Ireland was granted to John Crooke, a London bookseller, whose shop 

 was at the sign of the Ship in St. Paul's Churchyard. After Crool^e's 

 death the appointment was obtained by Benjamin Tooke of London 

 in 1669, with whom John Crooke was associated in 1671.^ James II. 

 granted the office of King's Printer in Ireland to James Malone, a 

 Roman Catholic Alderman of Dublin. William III., on his ex2:>edition 

 to Ireland, brought with him a printer named Edward Jones, and a 

 press at which his proclamations were printed. After the termination 

 of the war in Ireland the post of King's Printer was granted to Andrew 

 Crooke, son of John Crooke, already mentioned, intrust for his father's 

 children, and he held the office at the end of the seventeenth century.^ 

 During the closing years of that century there were, besides the King's 

 printers, a few typographers in Dublin, and of their productions par- 

 ticulars are given in the Appendix^ to this paper. They appear to 

 have been chiefly occupied with reprinting English publications. Of 

 these printers may liere be mentioned Joseph Pay, Avho printed the 

 first Dublin newspaper,*^ and published the original edition of Moly- 



^ For titles of works from his presses see the Journal of the " "Waterford and 

 South-East of Ireland ArchsDological Society" for 1898, 1899, et scq. 



Bladen died in 1663, and was buried in St. Werhurgh's Churchyard. The 

 last imprint hearing his initials appeared in 1662. 



3 The first dated imprint with John Crooke's name appeared in 1661, the last 

 with his name alone in 1668. In 1669 Benjamin Tooke's name appeared alone and 

 as King's Printer, and so continued till 1679, with one exception, when it appears 

 coupled with John Crooke, whom I conjecture to have heen a son or relative of the 

 first John Crooke, unless indeed Tooke merely added the name of the deceased 

 printer for some private reason and for the henefit of his family. 



* Andrew Crooke first appeared as a printer in 1684, and continued till 1721. 



^ This is the missing Appendix referred to in the Introduction. 



6 Suhsequently to the reading of this paper there were found in the Library of 

 "Worcester College, Oxford, some numbers of a weekly Journal printed in Dublin 

 iu 1663. See Proceedings R.I. A., 3rd Series, Vol. VI., No. 1, for further 

 particulars and reproduction of three or four pages. 



