Conor Burke is in an industrial building on the outskirts Lisdoonvarna when he switches on a machine. The sound, long forgotten, begins to echo around the darkened building.
The sounds of a printing press are hums or whirrs. Conor has amassed a large collection from the 19th and 20th century in the workshop of The Gentian Press, his fledgling printworks in Co Clare.
“I got this one from an old printers’ in Ennis,” Conor says over the sounds of the machine. It’s a rare Heidelberg cylinder press, built in Germany in 1958.
Although there are several in use for cutting paper, it’s the only machine in Ireland with a restored inking unit, that is capable of printing.
Even across Europe and the UK, there are only a handful of these presses in use, most famously in England, where Glastonbury Festival’s in-house newspaper, the Glastonbury Free Press, is printed on one.
An eight-tonne cast-iron behemoth, Conor’s Heidelberg, as well as the other machines surrounding him, are relics of a craft that was once nearly lost.
As printing technologies have advanced and then digitised, many machines like these – and the collections of lead and wooden typefaces that they use — have ended up on the scrap heaps of history.
“When we moved to digital and these machines weren’t needed any more, everything was thrown out,” Conor says.
“There’s pictures online of old print houses four-storeys high with people literally throwing wood type from the top story windows; big massive piles of wood type, just being burned.”
“I’ve inherited them the way they are, and they need to be kept this way so they can continue to be used for the next generation.”
The power of the printed word. The first moveable type printing machine was invented in Germany in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg. It is considered to be one of the most important technological innovations in human history.
Without the printing press, it would not have been possible to quickly reproduce and distribute everything, from religious texts and political manifestos, as well as the birth of newspapers or the advertising industry.
Print was a form of letterpress up to the time digital printing technologies were invented in the second half of the 20th Century.
In letterpress, ink is applied to the raised surface of letters or “type,” and then the arrangements of characters are pressed onto paper. Hand-setting type can be labor-intensive. Newspapers used to have large teams that did this job.
“You know the phrase ‘mind your Ps and Qs?’” Conor says, “Well, that came from the fact that the typesetters were working in reverse because all the type is backwards. It’s easy to confuse the lowercase P and lowercase Q.
“Even the terms ‘upper case’ and ‘lower case’ literally come from the fact that the capital letters were stored in a case above the lower case letters.”
Conor, who was born in Lisdoonvarna and studied graphic design at National College of Art and Design (NCAD), in Dublin. He fell in love the letterpress when he started to print letters. Conor now teaches art at Mary Immaculate Secondary School, his former school.
For a college project, Conor made a limited edition book in NCAD’s in-house Distiller’s Press, which has a Swiss-made proofing press from the 1950s.
He illustrated, printed and set 50 copies. The book, which documented the experiences and stories of children who have been subject to domestic violence, is called “The Book of Domestic Violence”.
“I interviewed families and kids, we took extracts of those interviews and turned them into little stories, and the text was all hand set and then the images were woodcuts and linocuts I made myself,” he says.
was nominated for a British Book Design & Production Award in 2017, the year it was printed.
Letterpress books like Conor’s are highly prized as artworks and collectibles and can sell for hundreds, even thousands, of euros: , his first book, sold for €200 a copy.
“I was lucky enough that The National Library, Trinity, UCC, and UCD all bought my book and some copies went to America,” he says.
“It would be mostly private college libraries that would buy them, but then the odd rare book collector too.
“It’s the craftsmanship and skill that goes into them that is why they are appreciated and why people buy them.
“It’s a niche market, but the people that are involved in it are heavily into it.”
Conor’s wooden drawers, where he keeps his collection in lead and wood typefaces, are beautiful.
In the centre of his typesetting area, there’s an antique steel-topped composing table from Sheffield engineers Stevenson Blake. This was a donation.
Conor found out that typefaces have a history of their own after he purchased a collection from Germany.
“I don’t show many people this,” he says.
“This is Fraktur Type, which would have been used by the Nazis for propaganda. It is not used anymore. It’s available in two types: the wood type and the lead type.
“They all came from the same place and while I was cleaning one of the drawers, I took the drawer out and in the back, I found these.”
He places three small blocks onto the composing table. Swastikas.
One is the National Socialist Party emblem (or Nazi), one is combined with an Eagle with Spread Wings, and one is a Swastika by itself. There is a gentle hum in the air. Such small objects.
“That one is stamped 1939,” he says.
“Were they use for printing propaganda? It is necessary to combine two and two.
“This is history: I don’t know what this was used for, what hands touched it.”
Conor sees the discovery as a chilling reminder about the power and responsibility that print has.
“I have the facility to make an impression on the wider world around me, to produce in print what resonates with me and with the social context around me,” he says.
“Jamie Murphy, my lecturer, said print always has a social context and a meaning. Doing my first book on domestic abuse was based on that idea.”
Conor is currently working on another book, an adapted version of Aidan Dooley’s play .
But in the meantime, he’s been busy amassing one of the largest collections of vintage printing presses and typefaces in Europe.
It’s just over a year and a half since Conor bought his first press, the same model of proofing press he printed on.
Ever since, through purchases and donations, he has been assembling and lovingly restoring a variety of presses, including a couple of Linotypes which use molten lead to form entire lines of text, and 19th century jobbing presses that don’t require any electricity to power.
“I have one of the biggest collections of letterpress equipment in Europe but I’ve been very, very lucky to gather it all in such a small space of time,” he says.
He’s eagerly looking forward to the opportunity to add a Wharfedale press, which is being donated from Claremorris, Co Mayo, to his collection: The Wharfedale is an early cylinder press and one was used to print the proclamation of Irish independence.
These machines require a lot of skill to repair and calibrate. Conor purchased a large Heidelberg press from an expert engineer who took two weeks to disassemble, package, transport, and reassemble it.
He’s had help from the engineer for the National Print Museum, from his own former NCAD lecturer, and from what he says is a very supportive international community of enthusiasts.
And now he’s had funding, too: A Leader grant of €125,000 to help turn his vision of a print workshop and artists’ studios into reality and Arts Council funding to develop a work space.
Lisdoonvarna, a small town in rural decline and associated dereliction.
The spa, which was built in Victorian times and boasts healing waters, can be found just across the street from Gentian Press. It was abandoned in covid.
Behind it, Maiville House is derelict, and Lynch’s Hotel on the main square also lies vacant and shabby.
Coastal Clare has many tourist attractions. Doolin and Lahinch are popular spots for surfers, as well as the Cliffs of Moher & the Burren. But Lisdoonvarna’s is suffering an unavoidable slump.
“It’s kind of scary,” Conor says. “There’s massive regeneration needed in the town.”
He believes that Lisdoonvarna can be a center of excellence in letterpress printing, which could attract international tourists to the town. There is also the potential to create residential workshops for people who are looking for specialized and sought-after skills.
The building Conor’s presses are now in was once a joiner’s, but it’s being converted to hold not only The Gentian Press, but also six bespoke artists’ studios and a multi-functional gallery space that will be open and operational by May 2023.
The mezzanine will be added and an etching and screen printing press and screen printer will operate on the top floor. Modern laser-cutting and 3D printing equipment will be kept in the front workshop.
“I’ve been very fortunate for people to see how brilliant this could be not only for the local area but further afield,” he says.
“Limerick Art College have been down and we want to bring students down for workshops.”
“There is someone in Switzerland doing residential workshops where people come and design a poster and lay it out and print it on a proofing press. They have people from all over the globe.
“I want to make the space as open as possible and set up a membership programme where you do an induction and pay a small fee and can then book in to use the equipment.
“I don’t want to make a big collection of letterpress equipment and not actually have it being used.
“The idea is to educate people and empower them to do their own work.”
A letterpress renaissance A little like the resurgence in interest in things like craft brewing, analogue photography and vinyl albums, letterpress printing is undergoing a “massive regeneration” around the world, especially in the US, Conor says.
It could be part of a hipster movement. He smiles.
“I think people want to return to analogue, tactile processes. I believe people are learning to appreciate the story behind things.
“All these old things are coming back into fashion. It keeps the mind engaged and you see the whole process from start to finish.”
There’s a couple of months of hard slog ahead for Conor to complete the building’s restoration and to start really making his mark on the international letterpress print community.
Once he’s up and running, he hopes to be printing up to four books a year, as well as limited edition runs of posters.
“It’s a labour of love and it takes time, but I don’t mind it,” he says.
“It’s been a crazy journey, but I feel like the universe is kind of rewarding me for the amount of energy that I’ve put in. My ideas are finally starting to get there.”