This chapter examines the legal contexts in which the press operated in Britain and Ireland in the years between the fall of the Star Chamber in 1641 and the passage of the Act of Union in 1800. Speaking of ‘legal contexts’ points to a broad range of conditions to be considered, since the absence as well as presence of particular laws could mark a context of constraint, by legal and other means, without the freedoms gained being illusory or lacking historical significance. Attention is necessarily directed towards London as the gravitational centre of print production and distribution for the archipelago, but the chapter seeks to extend its purview to the English regions and to Scotland and Wales; and, in our attempt to resist the pull of the English capital, we begin by considering the case of Ireland before turning to its offshore neighbours.

Ireland to 1800

Ireland in the early modern period was a small node on the far western periphery of European trade and information networks (Raymond and Moxham 2016: 19–63). Its centuries of struggle over land, language, religion and political power brought with them interminable instability, intermittent sectarian warfare and inescapable economic backwardness. These malign contexts help to explain the late arrival of printing in Ireland and the subsequent slow development of recourse to the printed word in debates and discussions. Until one side won a decisive victory and began to build the foundations of a new order, swords and gunpowder would be more important than books and printing presses.

Print from across Europe circulated in Ireland very soon after Gutenberg's startling invention, and a small number of high-status individuals had personal libraries that were significant in a national context (Gillespie 2005: 13). However, it was not until 1551 that Humphrey Powell published the first book in Dublin using moveable type. Thereafter, printing was slow to develop and consisted mostly of official proclamations from Dublin Castle.

The under-development of Ireland becomes clear by contrasting London with Dublin. In 1641, for example, more than 4,000 separate titles across a range of genres and topics were published in London. The metropolis also housed at least twenty printing establishments and perhaps as many as 200 bookshops and stalls.