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. The first typeface was commissioned in 1570. 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. Elizabeth had a strong interest in languages and enjoyed speaking to visitors from abroad in their own tongues. 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. 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.
