Trade Names: From printing the Proclamation in 1916 to today's digital age, a Dublin printer has had a long and interesting history, says Rose Doyle

Millers, the printers' suppliers who have been a huge part of the Irish print industry since 1831, began life at the cutting-edge of new technology. The company's gone through all sorts of peregrinations and change in the years since but, in an acute example of plus ça change, things have somehow stayed the same. Today's company is right up there at the cutting-edge of new technology. Has to be, as it had to be in the beginning. The print industry does not stand still.

Millers has been at the cutting-edge of Irish history too, but that's the middle part of the story.

The Miller Group, known to all as Millers has, like many former city centre-based companies, moved out of town, though only to Davitt Road, Dublin 12. It has changed ownership, too, but never its name and never been out of the control of dyed-in-the-wool print types.

Today's managing director John Quinn (38 years with the company albeit with a couple of breaks) and Eddie Gallen finance director (27 years on board and convinced he could "write a book on this place") elect to tell things as they were, and are. Former owner, William (Liam)Yendole, contributes invaluably.

The company was founded by one William Miller, a Scot who, not content with working as a typefounder in Grafton Street, set up Wm Miller & Sons, printing supply company, in 31 Middle Abbey Street in 1831.

A flourishing Millers was called on to do its bit in 1916. William Yendole says that James Connolly, in Liberty Hall printing the Proclamation, bought a font of type from Millers, then ran out of lower case "e's". Millers got them a second font but, when they needed a third of the same type, Millers didn't have it. This necessitated a breaking up and resetting of the setting, which meant the Proclamation had to be printed in two halves.

Liam Yendole believes Connolly had the press dismantled and hidden following the printing. He says, too, that the press used for the job was sold after the Rebellion to Juverna Press in Dublin and later to The Free Press in Limerick. About this last there's a note of discord. "Some of our people," according to Eddie Gallen, "say The Free Press is in Wexford."

Wm Miller & Sons, as a core part of the city's life and the printing industry, did well. The company was still based in Middle Abbey Street when Liam Yendole, then a director of Olympia Printers, bought it in 1952. In 1971 there came the first of the company's very few moves when it relocated to Pembroke Row and, with 70 employees on board, changed the name to the William Miller Group. This didn't make much difference; it continued to be known as Millers.

The company, Eddie Gallen says, "grew initially through supplying typesetting to the banks and a few other clients, including the newspapers, then through exports to Dutch companies who were printing religious texts and missals. A system was developed for setting the type for the red type and the black type together.

"After the move to Pembroke Row this side of the business was expanded and they bought the Metro Photoengraving Co of Kevin Street. They developed and supplied stereo and electro plates to the advertising industry and typesetting to many publishing companies and book printers. They changed direction slightly and began when they went into screen printing supplies in 72/3, getting these from a company called Sericol in the UK."

In 1975 the company closed down its typesetting facilities; they'd been setting books on linotype machinery for years. Later in the 1970s, it took on the agency for Heidelberg, the world's top press manufacturer. This continues to be a mainstay for the company.

John Quinn first joined Millers as a 16-year-old apprentice. "I left twice," he grins, "kept trying to get away." Eddie Gallen joined in 1979, leaving behind a life as an accountant with a clothing company in Capel Street. "There's a uniqueness about this company," he says, "it's like it's an institution and we're inmates."

"Lifers," John Quinn adds.

There's a tremendous wealth of industry experience, from sales to technology, within the company. Some of this is vested in people like Breda Corbett, 30 years with Millers, and in van driver John Yourell, also 30 years employed. Purchasing manager Gus Fox has clocked up 27 years, Ronan O'Daly, Heidelberg sales manager, 24 years, Donal Casey, pre-press manager, 20 years and finishing specialist Archie Irwin another 20 years. So it goes, right through the company, and with many others.

Business development through the 1980s was "mainly good" John Quinn says. "With the growth of the computer industry in Ireland there came huge growth as we supplied all of those producing manuals - Smurfits, Cahills, Wood Printcraft."

In 1993, the company moved to its present location on Davitt Road. "We needed to consolidate everything, trade under the Miller name only and found premises of 26,000sq ft here."

The change was, both agree, "awful" at first. "There was no Luas then," Eddie says, "and the social life of the company changed big time."

Drinks after work were a casualty. "We used to go across to the Henry Grattan and Larry Murphys. All that ended," John says. "We tried to keep the social fabric together but it hasn't been the same. We're all getting older, I suppose."

In a seismic shift within the company, the current management team took over in 1996. This was led by Frank Goodwin, sales director for 15 years and managing director in 1996 but now retired. Liam Condron, now deceased and who had long been in charge of screen printing, was also part of the group. John Quinn, Eddie Gallen, John Bermingham (sales director) and Christopher Doyle (technical director) were the others. Liam Yendole retired but remains in contact.

John Quinn admits they've gone through a "rough time in the last few years. But because we shared the profits with staff when things were good everyone co-operated when things got rough. People did all sorts of jobs and everyone from directors down took a 10 per cent salary drop. We wouldn't be here today if staff hadn't co-operated."

Eddie Gallen points out that "companies like ours used be one of the last to suffer in a recession but not any longer". John Quinn explains the changing world.

"There are 90,000 printing companies in China and three million people employed in the print manufacturing industry. The industry here is suffering because of over-legislation - labour rates, safety laws, environmental protection laws, employment laws of all sorts which competitors don't have - there's not a lot coming into Ireland to be printed but there's a huge amount going out. The whole industry's suffering."

But they will keep going. Millers employs 47 people plus three in a Belfast office opened in 2002 and which represents Sericol NI.

The Heidelberg agency is a mainstay still of a company which has moved, John Quinn and Eddie Gallen agree, "very much into the digital age".

"One thing the company has managed to do is reinvent itself," Eddie says. "Always has. Our philosophy is one of partnership with the companies we work with - if they're making money we're making money. So we encourage and help them make money!"

John Quinn says they will move premises again within two years. "We need a more modern building with open spaces, probably especially designed for the digital age. The nature of the business now means we need those open spaces, not small offices where we're cut off from one another. Things are more focused on buying and selling and installing nowadays. We put the first 10-colour Heidelberg into a company called Craftprint last year," he says, proud, "and have just installed a six-unit, special press for another company."

"Our staff training is ongoing," Eddie says, "in engineering, sales, everyone. We're constantly in touch with what's out there today."

Constantly and unfailingly enthusiastic too. In a changing world you have to be.