The Little Museum of Dublin, Stephen’s Green, is looking to recruit museum administrators and attendants under the Community Employment Scheme. Details of the jobs can be found here. You can find out if you are applicable for the terms of a CE Scheme here.
Lisa & Emma
As our Friday printing practice with printer Con Devlin involves setting up type to be printed, we thought that it might be interesting to learn a little more about the original Irish typeface, created for the purpose of printing material in the Irish language. Having consulted some books from our library and our class notes, we learned that the first Irish typeface was commissioned by Elizabeth I in the late sixteenth century. Elizabeth had a strong interest in languages and enjoyed speaking to visitors from abroad in their own tongues. At one stage, Elizabeth commissioned a manuscript for her own use, entitled the ‘Iryshe-Latten-English-Primer’, which set down the Irish alphabet, as well as some words and phrase in Irish, along with translations in both English and Latin.
The first typeface was commissioned in 1570. John Kearney, the treasurer of our own St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin agreed to provide ‘the stamps forms and matrices’ required to print two or three hundred catechisms, for the sum of £22 13s. 4d. Read more
Last Wednesday we were given a tour around the Distiller’s Press at the National College of Art and Design by Sean Sills. The Distillers Press is a working letterpress studio and NCAD are lucky enough to be the only third level institution with a working letterpress studio. Students of the college produce posters, books and course work in the studio and Sean showed us some of the work which has been produced there including an MA work in progress project, a hand printed book on the printers of the Titanic, and an award winning hand printed ‘Book of Hours’ produced in the studio.
Sean also allowed us to print our own book marks with the following wonderful George Bernard Shaw quote:
Well printed books are just as scarce as well written books
&
every author shall remember that
the most costly books derive their value from the craft of the printer
and
not the author’s genuis.
Four new people have joined our team this week! We are very excited to be filling up all of the slots on our course which opened up when last years trainees left in April. Lisa, Ema, Katherine, Terry, Jackie, Aaron, Laura and Sam would like to welcome you to the museum!
As part of our culture and heritage studies at the National Print Museum it is usual for us to embark on a trip to a local museum or place of interest every Wednesday. Last Wednesday, a trip to Sweny’s Pharmacy was organized. Sweny’s Pharmacy, as we all know, is the chemists immortalized in the James Joyce’s classic ‘Ulysses’. As the class is currently reading ‘Dubliners’ also written by James Joyce, we had a vested interest in visiting a place mentioned in the pages of one of his books.
Upon entering the store, we were greeted by the sweet aroma of lemon scented soap. We were made to feel so welcome by Wendy, a volunteer and Joyce enthusiast herself. She had a spread of biscuits and tea or coffee for her visitors at the ready. Wendy gave us a brief history of Sweny’s Pharmacy as a business. She related to us the fact that Sweny’s may have been lost forever had developers had their way, with plans to turn it into yet another drab café. Members of the class took turns reading a page or two of each chapter chosen. Together we read ‘The Boarding House’ and ‘Eveline’. It is a unique experience.
As we left the store we bid goodbye to Wendy and the fragrance of lemon soap.
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and would encourage everyone to pay Sweny’s Pharmacy of Lincoln Place, Dublin a visit. It is definitely a must see for any Joyce fan.
The great-grandson of an extraordinary Italian printer who came to Ireland in the late 1860’s Vinny began working in the industry as a ‘printer’s devil’ in 1950. He has a reputable career in the printing trade having worked in more than twenty-five Dublin printing offices during his sixty year career in the industry. Vinnie is now actively involved with the Museum, and is warmly referred to as “Father of the Chapel”. Myself,(Jacqueline Delaney) and Catherine Lynch were lucky to catch Vincent Caprani’s lecture on printing, and on his personal experiences in the printing industry in April as part of calendar of events. Vinny’s sennachi-style story-telling are extremely popular in and about the museum and throughout the city wherever he has worked so this was a fantastic opportunity for more people to get to hear him. There were 40 people in attendance, and the lecture was highly entertaining, and informative.
There were moments of laughter, and awe on Vinnie’s experiences both on a historical, and personal level. Vinnie recounted very amusing anecdotes and stories from his time as an apprentice. He also shared various jokes that would have been played on him and other apprentices which added to the entertainment of the night. Vinnie is also an author by trade and his new book is available at the National Print Museum gift shop. Rowdy Rhymes and Rec-im-itations was published by Gill & Macmillan in 2011. This book gives the lay person an insightful look in to the trade of printing as well as Dublin and includes some brilliant stories and poems. Beneath is an example of one of Vinnie’s wonderful poems, from this collection, which gives the reader a taste of what the printing world was like in Dublin: Read more
I found the Culture and Heritage Studies course in the National Print Museum on the FAS website. I was so happy to find it because it has modules in Irish Culture, Heritage, Archaeology and History and they were the particular subjects that interested me. I undertook an interview to join the course in February 2011. I was delighted when I met the course tutors as they both had a background in history and was accepted to start in March. The interviewers made it clear that tour guiding was an important part of the course and my only worry was tour guiding in the museum.
Before I started the course I had no experience with public speaking. I was worried about how to deal with groups of ten to thirty people and how I would feel about them looking and listening to me. When I was handed the tour script to learn for tour guiding I was very nervous. Read more
