In Retrospect: Ernest McClintock Dix and the first book printed in Dublin

Abstract

Introduction When Ernest McClintock Dix (Plate I) published his discovery of fragments of Dublin's first printed book in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy in 1909 he was already a well-established bibliographical scholar with a substantial publishing record.1 Born in 1857 Dix practised as a solicitor in Dublin until his death in 1936. Dix and his wife, both Protestants, were active in the Irish cultural revival of the late ninteenth and early twentieth centuries.2 He was taught Irish in Galway and gaelicised his name on a number of occasions in life. This concern with Irish culture manifested itself early in his career through an interest in antiquarianism and he published a number of papers on subjects as diverse as Newgrange, Edmund Burke's birthplace and the smaller castles of Co. Dublin. It appears to have been the work of a Cambridge bibliographer with strong Irish connections, Henry Bradshaw, that inspired Dix to turn his attention to the history of printing in Ireland and in particular to the compilation of lists of works published in individual Irish towns. Between 1 898 and 1912 Dix produced his first substantial work, a monumental five-part listing of books printed in seventeenth-century Dublin. The material for this came from a wide range of libraries as well as Dix's own extensive collection of Irish printings, which he had assembled from auctions and other sources. In March 1908 he was elected