Limerick printing works tells a good story

TradeNames: A Limerick print works has seen the highs and lows of the business over 200 years in the trade, writes Rose Doyle

Printing has to be one of the romantic industries, up there with the likes of design and horticulture on that fertile plateau where work and imagination meet and flourish.

"We've lasted 200 years," says Brien Morris of McKerns Print and Design in Limerick. "Though there's been an element of good fortune attaching, in that there were no technological changes in the printing industry until about 50-to-60 years ago. Up until then all you had to do was invest in cases of type and, once properly furnished with these and good printers, you had a business."

A man of humour and a philosophical bent, Brien Morris talks with eloquent pleasure of the days before "the business changed to photographic reproduction, before it became an IT business, when you could have a business plan for five or 10 years ahead, knew exactly what your goal was and could buy a particular machine. When you had logo/blocks made for customers and you had them captured! Now you never know what will happen in the world of technology."

Not that he regrets the changes. "The world has to change and move forward and you have to accept it. We've always moved with the times."

Since 1805 anyway, when a young Scot, one George McKern, began working as a type compositor with the Limerick General Advertiser and saw an opportunity in the booming town. Within a year he'd brought his younger brother, William, a printer, over from Scotland to set up G&W McKern & Sons, Printers and Stationers on the corner of Rutland Street and Francis Street. The year was 1806.

"I don't know why they came to Limerick in the first place," says Brien Morris. "Probably for the good looking girls. They were sons of Hector McKern who was a woollen draper and then a printer and moved here from Scotland."

The McKerns settled well, had a family seat in Roselawn House, overlooking the River Shannon and prospered until William McKern's teenage son, John, brought them down in 1846. Drunkenly in charge of a horse, John - shouting blasphemies at the preaching minister - rode up the centre aisle of St Mary's Cathedral.

Predictable discord followed, the brothers fell out and left Limerick, never to return. George McKern went to Argentina and was reported to have been involved in the founding of the Argentinian Football Union. William headed for Sydney, Australia. (His descendent, Leo McKern, visited the old firm some years ago).

The business passed on to George's son and, in time, to a third generation in his son and daughter. The swashbuckling teenage horseman, John McKern, spent his life as the resident organist in St Mary's. A stained glass window erected in his name by his family can be admired over the side door entrance.

McKerns' printing output was notable and lasting. By 1820 they'd printed a 64-page Account of Sieges from landing of King William, Limerick and its Sieges and Holiday Haunts on the West Coast of Clare.

As the 19th century came to an end, the McKern family sold the business to the Eakins family, whose roots were in Cork and who, within a short time, sold to the Lilburn family.

The business moved to different locations on George Street and over the years developed ancillary activities which have all gone, leaving the core printing business.

In 1948 the Morris family, today's owners, bought McKerns. Almost 60 years and two generations later, Brien Morris runs the company with his wife, Anne, who is financial controller, and Christopher Flynn, formerly of the Limerick Leader and who, as works manager, looks after technology and production. The last three score years have seen a lot of Morris commitment to the business, as well as a lot of talent, hard work and a passion for printing.

It began, you could say, with the death of Brien Morris's grandfather. "He and my grandmother, Olive, had just leased a farm at Monaleen when he died. They had six children, so she had to leave it and go elsewhere, rear them on a smallholding where she kept a few chickens and pigs. It was her eldest son, G (George) Ivan Morris who put us on our feet, saved the family you could say!

"He was self-educated, went to Dublin, became an accountant, bought Fodhla Printing there - it's still going, specialising in annual reports and run by Ken Rue. G Ivan ran Fodhla for himself (printing his own writings among others) and in 1948 bought McKerns Printing Works from Hugh Lilburn in Limerick."

As it was in the beginning so then too - G Ivan brought his younger brother Tom (father of Brien) in to manage the Limerick business. The energetic G Ivan also bought and resurrected the defunct Limerick Weekly Echo and its premises in 1950 and, for 21 years, the Morris brothers, G Ivan and Tom, put time and care into the paper too.

Life wasn't all work for Tom Morris. He played hockey, among other things, and at a hockey match met and fell in love with Bernie. "My parents," Brien says of the pair, "were mad about one another."

By 1969 G Ivan had sold both the Limerick Weekly Echo and McKerns to Tom and his eldest son, Ivan, on what Brien calls a "pay me sometime" basis. Ivan junior had started in McKerns four years earlier and now, while Tom carried on with the editing and running of the Limerick Weekly Echo, he set about building up McKerns' commercial print activities.

All of which coincided with those technological changes in the industry and saw McKerns become one of the first printing companies in Ireland to take on the challenge of offset/lithographics. "Though my dad loved the editing and reporting side of it, my brother, Ivan, had no great love of the newspaper business," Brien explains.

Tom Morris sold the Limerick Weekly Echo in 1971 and, in 1977 with the printing business growing, asked Brien (who was in insurance) to come on board. "I was being moved around the country and it was good to come back to Limerick," Brien says, "even if the moving had been a good life training experience! The printing industry gives variety and exercises huge creativity. Ivan was good enough, too, to let me come into the business."

And so the brothers, Ivan and Brien, ran McKerns together; Brian looking after production, Ivan bringing in customers. Through it all their father, Tom, and mother, Bernie, remained involved. Tom Morris died in 1994. Bernie Morris, at the age of 84, died in 2005.

Things are looking good for the 200-year-old company, these days in Glentworth Street. "Ivan retired and he's now writing full-time," Brien explains, "a novel with a golf theme and others. It's very good. When the Limerick Leader closed their printing department I asked Christopher Flynn if he'd join us and changed my own role to selling and co-ordination. That was about eight years ago.

"After he'd started here, Chris told me both his father and mother had worked and met in McKerns years before! Chris does technology and production; he's got a much better grasp of it than I have. My wife, Anne, had been in the business over 20 years and, as financial controller, she gives me money for sweets every so often."

He and Anne have two daughters, neither of whom want to work in the company. "They've seen the pressures," Brien laughs. "I don't know what'll happen when I retire but I'd like to see it continue as a printers. People don't value printing in the same way anymore but the written and printed word will always exist, will always be there. The wheel always turns, too, everything in this world is cyclical."