Colm O'Regan: Why printing is a type of skill that shouldn’t die

Demonstrations, workshops, and a chance to see clacking, grunting machines in action. There were printers, artists, and enthusiasts, all wanting to keep the old skills alive

Pictured at the National Print Museum, Dublin, for the announcement of the programme for The BIG Type Festival are author and designer Annie Atkins and 11-year-old Darrach Wrenn. Picture: Mark Stedman.

Like a lot of nice places, I don’t go there enough. The National Print Museum, tucked away behind the Beggars Bush Barracks on Haddington Road. The perfect combination of enormous machines and exhibitions of old prints.

At the moment it’s old tourism posters, but another time it was old lemonade bottle wrappers. It’s the kind of place that makes you ask questions like: Where did all the lemonades go?