By Dermot McGuinne
The nineteenth-century Irish polymath George Petrie is perhaps best remembered for his remarkable topographical watercolour paintings, his discoveries in areas of archaeological and antiquarian interest, and his extensive collection of early Irish music. Few, however, would readily associate him with the design and production of printing types. Consequently, the true measure of the importance of his contribution in that area of specialised design has yet to be properly acknowledged.
BACKGROUND
Petrie was born in Dublin on 1 January 1790 to Scottish parents. His father, James, was first-generation Irish, while his mother, Elizabeth Simpson, came from Edinburgh. She died just three years after giving birth to George, her only child. During his early childhood he lived with his father at their home in Dame Street. At the age of nine he was sent to school in Grafton Street, where under the tutelage of Dr Samuel Whyte the seeds of an appreciation of Irish culture, literature and song were sown. In pursuit of his growing interest in art he attended the Drawing Schools of the Dublin Society. He applied himself diligently to his studies, demonstrating a particular aptitude for watercolour landscape painting, which in time he was to use to great effect in the visual recordings of his extensive travels throughout Britain and Ireland. While primarily committed to his painting, Petrie continued to follow his interest in antiquities—perhaps stemming from his early childhood hobby of coin-collecting—and his archaeological and topographical investigations in the form of fieldwork and scholarly research.
In addition to his prowess in painting, Petrie contributed significantly to the management of the arts. In 1826 he was instrumental in the establishment of the Royal Hibernian Academy. Later, as secretary, he was responsible for the controversial introduction of a scheme of reduced entry fees designed to encourage a greater number of visits from the general public. The Academy was constantly struggling under severe financial difficulties. Petrie was elected president in 1856 but resigned two years later amidst ongoing disagreements and differences with other members, particularly with regard to matters of fiscal concern. Later in life he served on the Royal Dublin Society Committee of Fine Art.
ORDNANCE SURVEY OF IRELAND
Two events, however, that occurred earlier, towards the later part of the 1820s, had a significant bearing on Petrie—both destined, albeit in a secondary manner, to influence his ability to design printing types. First, following the government decision to undertake a comprehensive Ordnance Survey of Ireland, Petrie was appointed director of the Topographical Department with responsibility, inter alia, for pronouncing on the correct form for the Irish place-names to be referenced in the text and for inclusion in the associated maps. He established his operational base in his residence at 21 North Great Charles Street, Dublin, rather than at the Ordnance Survey headquarters in the Phoenix Park on the outskirts of the city, in order to be near the various library and archive sources that he needed to consult. Here at TeePetrie he gathered a team of experts that included Irish-language scholars like Eugene O’Curry and John O’Donovan.
This project involved him in extensive fieldwork that built on his experience as an archaeologist/antiquarian. In turn, it led him to examine many examples of Irish letter inscriptions carved in stone and engraved on various metal antiquities. There is evidence that he recorded numerous detailed drawings of each letter of the Irish style alphabet as observed from these sources.
Second, about this time he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, where later he was appointed to the Committee of Antiquities. In this capacity he was able to contribute to the work of the library, where he showed a particular interest in its collection of early Irish manuscripts. Consequently, he was later well prepared to consider the question that faced many type-designers from the outset of that process, namely the achievement of a proper balance between carved stone inscriptions and the calligraphy of the scribe as inspiration for their designs.
PUBLICATION OF THE ANNALS OF THE FOUR MASTERS
In 1830 Petrie purchased a holograph copy of the Annals of the Four Masters, which he later transferred to the Royal Irish Academy. When the publishers Hodges and Smith undertook to finance its publication in 1832, a committee was formed that included Petrie and preparations for the printing were begun in earnest. He designed a distinctive irish character typeface for the Irish text that at the time received widespread approval. Various pre-production notices for the Annals mention the irish type to be used and that it was prepared by Petrie specifically for this purpose. His associate Eugene O’Curry confirmed that ‘the forms were carefully drawn from the earliest authorities by the elegant hand of my respected friend, Dr Petrie’. He was acutely aware of how the finished work should appear and contributed to the enlightened proposal to face the Irish text with an English translation.
FIRST APPEARANCE
Despite its association with the Annals, the type first appeared briefly in 1837 in ‘The Ordnance Survey of County Londonderry’ some thirteen years before the printing of the Annals. Advance rush copies of the survey were prepared for a meeting of the British Association in 1835, noting that ‘This copy has been struck off previously to the final revision of the Book for the purpose of being laid before the British Association, on its meeting in Dublin’, thus indicating that the type was already available at that date. The type next appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy in 1838, where it was used in Petrie’s ‘An account of an ancient Irish reliquary called the Domhnach-Airgid’, in which he remarked on the use of his type for certain Irish-language tracts:
‘It should be observed, that the type in which the following fragments are printed is not to be considered a fac-simile of the MS., in which the letters are larger, but it will give a very good general idea of the character, having been cast from the best specimens of Irish MMS. of the sixth and seventh centuries’.
Whether the type was prepared for the Annals or for the Ordnance Survey is perhaps of minor consequence by virtue of the fact that Messrs Hodges and Smith, who were the publishers for both projects, correctly claimed ownership of the design themselves. Evidence of this is contained in two documents submitted to the Stationers’ Office in London on 11 April 1844 by way of establishing their right of ownership: first, a printed single sheet entitled ‘Irish Hibernian, cut and cast from original drawings executed for Messrs. Hodges and Smith’, showing the Petrie pica and long-primer alphabets; second, a ‘Form of Requiring Entry of Proprietorship’ indicating that the type was first used for publication in December 1837 and that it was the property of John Hodges and George Smith of 21 College Green, Dublin. To the eye more appreciative of the qualities of roman type it is evident that this Petrie style was more readable than many of those irish types used heretofore. Its departure in style can be placed into three general categories.
The Petrie A type of 1835, designed directly by Petrie, was produced in two sizes: pica (12 point) and long-primer (10 point). It was modelled on the half-uncial lettering style of the early Christian scribes, primarily used for writing Latin texts, together with carved stone inscriptions and religious metal engravings. The type forms a truly distinguished printable character with well-proportioned features favourably comparable with many of the better contemporaneous roman designs. It was used by the printer Michael H. Gill at the Trinity College Press in the publications of the Royal Irish Academy, and used to such great effect by him in 1848 in John O’Donovan’s edition of The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland that it attracted the highest praise universally amongst reviewers and scholars alike.
The Petrie B type was also produced in two text sizes, 10 point and 8 point. They were based directly on Petrie’s earlier designs and prepared on the instructions of Gill for the College Press. He used them exclusively at the press for the ongoing publications of the Royal Irish Academy and the Irish Archaeological Society. They demonstrated many improvements on the earlier ‘A’ version, having a more refined appearance and standing upright with an even colour on the page. It is little wonder that these types, particularly the later version, attracted such praise, for they too compared favourably with many of the better roman faces of the time, while retaining the unique and distinguishing features of the Irish style.
The Petrie C type is generally referred to as Thom’s Archaeological Society Type after the fact that it frequently appeared in the Archaeological and Celtic Society publications printed by Alex. Thom and Co. Loosely based on Petrie’s earlier design, it contained various complicated ornamental flourishes and embellishments awkwardly attempting to incorporate an impression of the pen-strokes of the scribe. In this regard it represented a step backwards in the development of this round Irish style. It was available in four sizes—14, 12, 11 and 10 point.
NEWMAN TYPE
Just over twenty years after his first effort at printing-type design Petrie was again working on producing yet another irish typeface—this time for the Catholic University Press at the request of its rector, John Henry Newman. This style looked to the more angular minuscule scribal influence. It was later to become the model for the popular so-called modern irish series and was widely accepted and used regularly by Irish printers. Again Eugene O’Curry observed: ‘The forms adopted in the present type have been carefully drawn by Dr Petrie from those of the Book of Hymns, in which will be found the exact facsimiles of every form among them’. Having identified other early manuscripts consulted, the managers of the press declared: ‘These then are the authorities for every letter of the present type, which may perhaps be regarded as the most perfect, if not the first perfectly correct, Irish type ever cut’. Newman himself commented: ‘The Irish type is a very beautiful one, but I do not understand its merits, and my praise is worth nothing’. Later, recalling these events in the account of his efforts in Ireland, Cardinal Newman made reference to the irish type: ‘I went to the expense of having a font of Irish type cast for the use of the University; there being up to that time only the Trinity College type [the Petrie B type], and I think one other’.
Modelled on the more angular minuscule forms frequently used by the early scribes for writing Irish-language texts, this was the first face in this style to achieve a neutral remove from those calligraphic idiosyncrasies associated with many of its forerunners. It is orderly and upright, with well-proportioned individual letters that harmoniously relate well to one another in the rhythmic formation of text.
The Newman type had a profound influence on a number of fonts produced towards the turn of the century at a time when there was a marked increase in the volume of material being printed in Irish and a greater mechanical ease in setting type.
From the earliest times of printing Irish in the sixteenth century a debate had ensued as to the most appropriate typographic form to be employed: the existing roman style or the so-called irish character (which, it should be noted, was itself a roman, a roman arrested in time), with strongly expressed opinions supporting each approach. Following the appearance of the Petrie fonts, a similarly divisive debate developed concerning the use of the round as distinct from the narrow style. Perhaps by association, the round style was deemed to be overly akin to the roman (sometimes referred to as the english style). Traditionalists strongly preferred the Newman type.
COLM Ó LOCHLAINN
One advocate for the round form was Colm Ó Lochlainn, a highly respected fine printer of the early twentieth century and proprietor of the Three Candles Press in Dublin. As an Irish-language enthusiast he was particularly interested in this matter: ‘As a printer I revere tradition in all things yet I hold no brief for the present Gaelic type [those modelled on the Newman style]. I consider it one of the worst of the twenty Gaelic typefaces ever used. It is spikey and patchy, it is lacking both in grace and dignity.’ Ó Lochlainn went on to have a round-style font designed himself, largely based on the earlier Petrie model. ‘Colmcille’, as it came to be called, was produced by the Monotype Corporation in England, with significant expertise provided from that source. It did not, however, prove to be popular with either printers or readers, the Three Candles Press being the primary supplier of composition setting in this style.
It is unlikely that Petrie in preparing his designs could have foreseen the divergence of opinion they were to generate. Perhaps his most enduring pursuit—collecting Irish airs, lyrics and melodies—was of the greatest importance to him throughout his career and was a matter that he returned to in later life. In 1851 he was elected president of the newly established Society for the Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland. Aware of the vast quantity of yet unpublished national music existing in various forms throughout the country, the Society sought to secure the preservation, classification and publication of this material. Its council identified Petrie’s own archive, containing in excess of 500 unpublished airs, as material worthy of its initial attention. It was intended that Petrie’s collection would issue in three volumes but, as events transpired, the Society only succeeded in printing one—in 1855.
Notwithstanding the remarkable service that he had provided to his country, Petrie lived out his last days in relative poverty. With the loss of income from the Ordnance Survey project he returned to his painting: ‘I must still paint to live’. He died of a fever on 17 January 1866. He was still actively working on his music collection at the time, when it was estimated that his archive of Irish airs had grown to more than 2,000 melodies.
Dermot McGuinne is the retired Head of the Departments of Fine Art and of Visual Communication Design at the Technological University of Dublin.
Further reading
V. Kinane, A history of the Dublin University Press, 1734–1976 (Dublin, 1994).
D. McGuinne, Irish type design—a history of printing types in the Irish character (2nd edn) (Dublin, 2010).
P. Murray, George Petrie (1790–1866)—the rediscovery of Ireland’s past (Cork, 2004).