MS 64 Cuala Press Card Collection
A selection of items from the Cuala Press Card Collection is currently on display on the first floor of the McClay Library.
About the Cuala Press
In 1902, Susan and Elizabeth Yeats (also known as Lily and Lolly), founded the Dun Emer Press. They were the sisters of the renowned poet W.B. Yeats. The press was originally part of Dun Emer Industries, a larger artistic collective founded by Evelyn Gleeson in order to provide education and employment for Irish girls. In 1908, the Yeats sisters parted ways with Dun Emer and renamed their venture the Cuala Press. Satirized in Joyce’s Ulysses as ‘the weird sisters’, the sisters primarily employed women, offering both jobs and vocational training during some of the most tumultuous decades in modern Irish history. Within Cuala Industries, Lily oversaw design, embroidery, tapestry and carpet weaving, while Lolly managed book publishing. The Cuala Press published the first editions of works by Irish authors including W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and J.M. Synge, and became closely associated with the Irish Literary Revival.
About MS 64
The Cuala Press Card Collection represents some of the rarest of Cuala Press productions from the 1910s to the 1950s. Printed in outline from zinc blocks, many of the cards are individually hand-colored by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats or other Cuala staff under her supervision, with many exhibiting the qualities of original watercolours. Commissioned from leading contemporary Irish artists, many of them women, the designs show west of Ireland landscapes or scenes from the Christmas story. All are printed on Irish paper specially made for the Cuala Press at the Saggart mill near Dublin. Although large numbers of these cards were issued, they are by their very nature ephemeral and very few examples remain, especially in this condition.