British and Irish Print Networks

11-12 July 2016 Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway

The 19th Print Networks conference has as its theme ‘British and Irish Print Networks’. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Ireland became increasingly integrated within a British economic and political space. After 1801, Ireland formed part of the United Kingdom and it supplied both food and labour power to industrialising Britain. The same pattern appears in the domain of print – in the eighteenth century, Dublin printers specialised in reprinting or pirating British books, for transatlantic as well as Irish readers. After 1801 they became agents of English and Scottish publishers, and print workers joined the ranks of larger British trade unions. At the same time, Ireland developed its own print networks in the US and Canada, exporting books and periodicals produced independently of Britain in the indigenous market. Speakers will address the dynamics of the relationship between the print trade in Ireland and its counterparts to England, Scotland and Wales.

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