#cuala press

[garadinervi]

The Yeats Sisters & Irish Design: Making, Identities & Legacies, Ambasáid na hÉireann / Embassy of Ireland, WTC 2, Jakarta, February 10 – March 7, 2025 [ISA Art Gallery, Jakarta]

(image: Elizabeth Yeats and two employees in Dublin in 1904)

↗ Lily & Elizabeth – The Yeats Sisters

[thecalendarwomen]

The forgotten ‘weird sisters’ of WB Yeats who helped forge Irish identity

Overlooked except for a scornful reference in Ulysses, Elizabeth and Lily ran a vibrant women-only arts and crafts enterprise

...In Ireland, Elizabeth and Lily Yeats are remembered if at all as the “weird sisters” – a fleeting, scornful reference in James Joyce’s Ulysses....They ran an arts and craft enterprise, Cuala Press, from 1908 to 1940, but Elizabeth and Lily were chiefly known as the sisters of two famous brothers – the poet William Butler Yeats and the painter Jack Yeats....The Cuala Press employed only women and produced handcrafted books, cards and prints that won glowing reviews at exhibitions in Paris, London, Chicago and elsewhere, seeding a romanticised image of Irishness that verged on propaganda....

[uwmspeccoll]

St. Patrick’s Day 2022

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Today, March 17, marks the anniversary of the death of St. Patrick (allegedly), patron saint of Ireland. There is some disagreement on the exact dates St. Patrick lived, though there is some consensus the it would been the late 5th century based on his writings. There are two surviving writings of St. Patrick, the Declaration (or Confessio) and the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus (or Epistolo). 

What we have here is known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate or the Faeth Fiada—a prayer found in the 11th Century Liber Hymnorum. Faeth Fiada has been taken to mean “Deer’s Cry” after a story in which St. Patrick is supposed to have said the prayer and then he and his fellows appeared as deer to those pursuing them. What is more likely, however, is that “Faeth Fiada” is related to “féth fíada,” which is a magical mist or veil in Irish folklore, that the Tuatha Dé Danann used to hide themselves from human sight. 

This broadside was hand set, hand colored, and printed at the Cuala Press in Dublin, Ireland. The drawing of Saint Patrick is by Jack B. Yeats and the hand illuminated initial letter is by Elizabeth C. Yeats (siblings of William Butler Yeats). It is part of a collection of 66 reprints of Cuala Press prints, reprinted in the 1970s by Michael and Anne Yeats. 

Happy St. Paddy’s!

View more St. Patrick’s Day posts.

- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[garadinervi]

William Butler Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole, (2), Cuala Press, Churchtown, Dundrum, 1917 (1919 The Macmillan Company edition here) [Yale University Library, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT]

[garadinervi]

The Cuala Press 1903-1973, An Exhibition Arranged by the National Book League to Celebrate the Seventieth Anniversary of the Cuala Press, [London], 11-30 June 1973, Printed by Dolmen Press, Baile Átha Cliath / Dublin

↗ Lily & Elizabeth – The Yeats Sisters

[uwmspeccoll]

Birthday Anniversary: W.B. Yeats, born June 13, 1865

Today is the birthday anniversary of William Butler Yeats, born on this day in 1865 in Sandymount, Ireland. Yeats was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occultist society that dabbled in things like tarot and spiritualism. 

This book unfortunately has nothing to do with the occult, and is titled Reveries Over Childhood and Youth. The book was published in 1915 by the Cuala Press, which was run by W.B. Yeats’ sister Elizabeth Yeats. Read more about Elizabeth Yeats and the Cuala Press in a previous post here. 

Also featured here are plates from Plates to Accompany Reveries Over Childhood and Youth by W.B. Yeats, which include drawings of Yeats’ parents and “Memory Harbor.” The description of “Memory Harbor” is interesting:

“’Memory Harbor’ is the village of Rosses Point, but with the distances shortened and the houses run together as in an old-fashioned panoramic map. The man on the pedestal in the middle of the river is ‘the metal man,’ and he points to where the water is deep enough for ships. The coffin, cross-bones, skull, and loaf at the point of the headland are to remind one of the sailor who was buried there by a ship’s crew in a hurry not to miss the tide. As they were not sure if he was really dead they buried him with a loaf as the story runs.”

Happy birthday anniversary to W.B. Yeats!

- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[loynosca]

Love Poetry of W. B. Yeats

Our Valentine’s treat is to highlight our copy of A Selection from the Love Poetry of William Butler Yeats.

Hand-printed in 1913, in an edition of 300, the volume was the product of the Cuala Press.

The Cuala Press, initially the Dun Emer Press, was part of an Arts and Crafts studio operated by W.B. Yeats’ sisters Elizabeth Corbet Yeats and Susan “Lily” Yeats. Elizabeth had learned the art of hand printing from William Morris, and the work of the Kelmscott Press was hugely influential on the Cuala Press.

Our copy contains the following inscription in Irish Gaelic. We would love to know what it says!

[uwmspeccoll]

Historic Woman Printer/Publisher of the Week

Elizabeth Corbet Yeats (1868-1940)

Elizabeth Yeats was the daughter of noted Irish artist John Butler Yeats, and sister of W. B., Jack, and Lilly Yeats. The Yeats family had moved to London, where Elizabeth (known to the family as Lolly) was born, in 1867 and remained there before returning to Dublin in 1900. While in London, both Elizabeth and Lily became involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement and the household of William Morris. Elizabeth learned the fundamentals of hand book production at the Kelmscott Press.

In 1902, Elizabeth and her sister Lily Yeats joined Evelyn Gleeson in establishing Dun Emer Industries at Dundrum, near Dublin, a crafts production enterprise based on the Arts and Crafts model. Elizabeth was responsible for the printing operations of the Dun Emer Press. In 1908, after producing eleven titles, Elizabeth left Dun Emer to establish the Cuala Press at Churchtown, Dublin, becoming the the only Arts and Crafts press directed and staffed by women. The press specialized in work by writers associated with the Irish Literary Revival, and ended up publishing over 70 titles in total, including 48 by William Butler Yeats, before it closed in 1946. All the books of Dun Emer and Cuala were hand printed on Irish hand-made paper, and most were hand bound in a uniform quarter linen binding with blue or grey paper over boards, often with a printed paper spine label. Both presses also produced many prints, broadsides, holiday cards, and other ephemera, often with original hand-colored illustrations by Jack B. Yeats and others.

In the six years after Elizabeth’s death, the press continued to be operated by women under the direction of W. B.’s wife Georgie. In 1969 the press was revived by W. B. Yeats's children, Michael and Anne Yeats, with Liam Miller, reproducing many earlier Cuala titles through the 1970s.

1.) The photographic image is from Wikimedia Commons and shows Elizabeth Yeats at the hand press, with Beatrice Cassidy standing to roll ink, Esther Ryan at a table correcting proofs.

2.) Colophon from A Book of Saints and Wonders by Lady Gregory. Dun Emer Press, 1906.

3.) Hand-printed publisher’s announcement for A Book of Saints and Wonders, Dun Emer Press, 1906.

4.) Binding for Deirdre of the Sorrows by John M. Synge. Cuala Press, 1910.

5.) Title page for Reveries Over Childhood and Youth by William Butler Yeats. Cuala Press, 1915. With title-page woodcut device by Thomas Sturge Moore.

6.) Title page for The Cat and the Moon by William Butler Yeats. Cuala Press, 1924. The title-page devise of a charging unicorn was designed by Lady Gregory’s son Robert Gregory, and first used by the press in 1907.

7 & 8.) Two undated Christmas cards from the Cuala Press with texts by Susan L. Mitchell and hand-colored prints by Jack B, Yeats (7) and Lady Beatrice Glenavy (8).

9.) Broadside, The Breastplate of Saint Patrick, with a hand-colored print by Jack B. Yeats and a hand-illuminated initial by Elizabeth Yeats, reprinted in the 1970s by Michael and Anne Yeats. From a collection of 66 Cuala Press reprints.