Elizabeth and Emily Yeats, with Evelyn Gleeson, formed Dun Emer in 1903 to revive the industries of weaving, emproidery and printing. Bookbinding workshops were later added. It was a cause in the spirit of William Morris, but for Ireland, and employed and taught only women, specifically aimed at training working class girls. W.B. Yeats became an editor of the press, and many of his works were published and printed here, and Jack Yeats was responsible for many illustrations. The majority of books published by the press were by living Irish writers. The press also produced broadsides, prints, cards and pamphlets.
In 1908 Emily and Elizabeth moved the printing and embroidery workshops, and named the new enterprise Cuala. W.B. Yeats continued as editor, and the books were designed by Sturge Moore, Jack Yeats, and Edmund Dulac.
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"The Times" Broadsheets for Soldiers and Sailors:
Selected Passages from Great English Writers.
Made by Sir Walter Raleigh
"At a time when other Irish presses were devoting their energies to reprintings of classic texts, Cuala was issuing the new literature of an emerging Ireland and proclaiming, from an Irish address, the living vitality of Irish heritage. Elizabeth's brother, the poet W.B. Yeats, served as editorial advisor until his death in 1939, and many of his friends, including AE, J.M. Synge, John Masefield, Katherine Tynan and Ezra Pound, had their work first published by the Press. Yeats himself gave his sister first rights to all his work."
When Elizabeth died in 1940, the press was taken over by George Yeats, W.B. Yeat's wife. In 1969, the press was taken up by Michael and Anne Yeats, with Liam Miller, continuing the aims of its founders (4).
