reland is a land of two traditions. In literature the older, Gaelic tradition can be traced back, as a living force, to the earliest time, in our recorded history. Epic tales of great power, often couched in language of inspired beauty, which have their origins in a culture older than Rome’s still arouse admiration even though their transmission almost to our own day did not depend on the technology of the printer. Passed down the centuries, this old Irish literature was served first by the seanachie, the storyteller, and later by the scribe.

Ireland’s second cultural heritage, which today would be called ‘the Anglo-Irish tradition’ can be traced down the turbulent course of our island’s history to the coming of the Normans some eight centuries ago, in 1169, an event which was followed by a claim of the British to sovereignty over Ireland - a claim bolstered by the writings of the Welsh monk, Gerald, whose History and Topography of Ireland, compiled about the year 1200, might be dubbed the first Anglo-Irish book. From that date the split in Irish tradition widened, event bough English was not for some hundreds of years the common language of the conquerors. Indeed the Statute passed at Kilkenny in 1366 decreeing the official use of English and banning Irish was composed in Norman French - the conquerors had become ‘More Irish than the Irish themselves’.

The old Irish culture was preserved mainly away from the towns and cities which were, after all, chiefly Norman foundations. The hereditary bardic families continued to relate the old tales and chronicle the Irish past and their repertory was written down in folio [235] books which were treasured by the ancient families. The imposition of the craft of the printer in the sixteenth century did not have any effect on this process, which carried on right into the nineteenth century. But the growth of Dublin as a commercial centre in the eighteenth century led to the development of a large publishing industry which profited by its freedom from England’s copyright restrictions, producing unlicensed reprints of English best sellers as soon as copies could be had via the Holyhead packet boat and delivered to the waiting compositors in Dublin.

However, before the 1830s little of this print increase reflected any nationalist viewpoint. The Angle-Irish contribution to the development of English literature and the profitability of English publishing was enormous, and continues so today. Certain writers, notably Swift and Berkeley in eighteenth-century Ireland, published attacks on the abuse of Ireland, but without any great effect. However, from the Act of Union of 1800 a nationally-minded press gradually developed in Ireland, despite severe opposition and by the 1830s was a force to be reckoned with.

The influential Nation newspaper of the following decade was only part of a growing Irish publishing industry which included both popular works and scholarly editions of the old Irish literature edited by such learned men as John O’Donovan, George Perris and other members of the Royal Irish Academy, while the poets of the national movement, among them Davis, Mangan and Ferguson, were the spiritual ancestors of Yeats and Hyde and the other creators of the Irish Renaissance at the end of the century. From that early flowering the imprints of Duffy and Gill are still figuring in Ireland’s publishing scene today.

The twentieth century saw a second revival in Irish publishing, mainly through the house of Maunsel, later Maunsel and Roberts of Dublin who issued a list of international quality including Yeats, George Moore, Lady Gregory, Padraic Colum, introduced Synge to the world and almost succeeded in publishing Dubliners, by James Joyce. The changing circumstances, economic and political of the 1920s and 1930s had an adverse influence on Ireland’s tiny publishing industry and more and more of the best writers had to seek publication in the major centres, London and New York, to earn their living. The introduction of the restrictive Censorship Act or 1929 spelled the death knell of effective Irish publishing for three decades. [236]

Since the 1950, a new revival in Irish publishing has taken place, one which promises to last and which seems to have grown in strength contrary to the trend in larger centres over the past ten years of a decline. At first a couple of small literary presses produced new work from Ireland which claimed notice in international reviews, and led to a growing awareness of writers that being published from an Irish house did not necessarily bear the disadvantage it had some years before. The economic growth of the country during the 1960s probably had something to do with the encouragement of the movement, without seeing any financial input into the infant industry. But by the late sixties a few publishers were going to the Frankfurt International Book Fair to show their books.

By 1970 Irish publishing had acquired enough confidence to form its trade association, the Irish Book Publishers’ Association, known as CLE from the initials of its name in Irish, reflecting the numbers of its members who publish exclusively in Irish. The purpose behind CLE was to achieve better recognition for Irish publishing both at home and abroad. The yearly presence at Frankfurt was developed as a national stand, which over the years has become a centre of attention. From the beginning CLE has mounted promotions both in Ireland and abroad. The introduction of Value Added Tax on books led to representations to the Revenue Commissioners to plead the case - a plea unheard at the time, but perhaps an opening of the case for later consideration.

In International Book Year 1972, the influential Times Literary Supplement published a special issue on Irish Writing, which included a survey of publishing. By then membership of CLE had grown from the seven founder firms to eighteen, of which four published exclusively in Irish. The Association has continued to grow so that in its recently published Directory of the Irish Book Trade (CLE, Dublin, 1983, £15 to non-members), the hundred or so separate imprints identified as Irish reflect graphically a phenomenal growth in this small industry.

This growth must, in the greater part, be attributed to support from the home market. Books from Irish houses seem to have a growing appeal to the book-buyers, perhaps because the subject-matter can be more local in its appeal than books which have to appeal to a non-Irish readership as well. Economic factors have also a big influence. Since the Irish currency has broken from parity with sterling conversion of London prices has been in favour of the Irish [237] published book and, in the past year, the rerating of the Value Added Tax on books to a zero rate has had a large influence on book sales in Ireland.

The Irish publishing industry is still small enough to have room for all its member firms. There is little of the trade rivalry which characterizes the industry in larger bases. Nor is there bidding for the international “best-seller”. Each house is largely specialist in its interests, some in local history, some in fiction, poetry, drama, educational work, statistical and business affairs, religion, and so on. And there are still areas where development is possible, reflecting aspects of Irish life, among them farming and food, little dealt with in Irish lists as yet.

The strength in Irish publishing is, as ever, its literary content. More and more Irish writers have been attracted back to publish their new work from Irish houses and this in turn gives added bargaining power to the Irish publishers in placing their books internationally, as co-editions with English-language publishers, or sold as translation rights. The Arts Council has assisted the process with its help to creative writing and, of recent years has made direct grants to publishers available to assist with the publication of specific titles. A more general form of funding to publishers is, I understand, to be developed in the near future.

Ironically the creation of Ireland as a tax haven for many international best-selling authors has caused little input into Irish publishing. The tax-free resident writers who benefit by this bounty may be precluded by their contractual arrangements from giving rights to Irish publishers in any worldwide way but surely, in cooperation with the big publishers abroad, Irish publishing could benefit largely by servicing the home market with some of the best-sellers generated by these writers.

Co-operation with publishers abroad seems to be the key to the continuing growth in Irish links with world publishing. A recent example of this is the co-operative arrangement between Arlen House, the Irish women’s press, with Marion Boyars, in London which has resulted in some Irish fiction from new writers being widely noticed, and has helped the revival, from an Irish base, of the novels of Kate O’Brien. More and more new fiction from Ireland is finding outlets in London and New York with occasional translations into German, Dutch, Swedish and other languages.

The growth of Irish publishing has been greatly helped by the Irish [239] newspapers. Each of the three Dublin-based daily papers devotes at least a page each week to book reviews, with similar space allocated by the Cork daily paper and two of the national Sunday papers. While Irish publishers compete for attention with the many submissions from English houses, the local interest of the books usually achieves notice. The national radio and television services are also generous with the space allocated to books, with a major review programme, “Folio”, weekly on television.

Books Ireland, a monthly devoted to news and reviews of Irish books, edited by Bernard Share and published by Jeremy Addis has a good readership both in Ireland and abroad and is in its seventh year. One national daily, the Irish Press has a weekly page of New Irish Writing, which, edited by David Marcus, has over the fifteen years since it started introduced many of the best new writers to the publishing scene. David Marcus is also a director of the Poolbeg Press, one of the paperback houses which specializes in fiction, while the other main paperback list, Mercier Press, Cork-based, has an extensive list firmly rooted in Irish traditional culture. {End.]