Typography Tuesday: Irish Type
Gaelic or Irish typefaces were widely used in Ireland from the 16th to the mid-20th centuries, but are little used today, except to express Irish distinctiveness. Apparently the first Gaelic typeface was designed in 1571 by the English to be used to convert the Irish to Anglicanism.
Many of the letter forms are derived from medieval insular manuscript hands, some directly from insular forms, such as r and s ⟨ꞃ ꞅ⟩, and others that bear insular shapes, such as d, f, g, and t ⟨ꝺ ꝼ ᵹ ꞇ⟩. The typefaces also used a system of vowels with acute accents and a set of consonants with dot diacritics.
The late 19th century saw a spirited revival in Irish language, literature, heritage, and nationalism. The publication featured here, The Gael, or in Irish An Gaodhal, was founded by the Irish language promoter Mícheál Ó Lócháin, and published in Brooklyn, New York, from 1881-1904. As stated on its title page, The Gael was “A monthly Journal, devoted to the Cultivation and Preservation of the Irish Language, and the autonomy of the Irish Nation.” The Irish in America seemed more interested in the language than their compatriots in Ireland. By 1890, The Gael had a circulation of almost 3000, in contrast to the main Irish language journal printed in Dublin during the same period which had only 400 subscribers.
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