Make it Irish! Reprints and hibernicizations for (young) Irish readers in eighteenth-century Dublin.

Before the British Copyright Act of 1710 was extended to Ireland in 1801, its book market was dominated by British works, reprinted by Irish booksellers. Rather than being mere copies of the original, many of these were hibernicized, or made Irish. This chapter addresses the transnational phenomenon of culturally translated books issued in Ireland in the eighteenth century. It focusses on the Dublin bookseller James Hoey Junior, especially on his hibernicized version of John Newbery’s 1750 encyclopedia for children, A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies, and reviews the sociopolitical context in which it was created. The chapter probes the blend of commercial and patriotic interests behind Hoey’s hibernicization, and aims to ascertain the degree to which his own cultural and religious affiliations are evident in his version for young Irish readers.