See note to lot 403 for a short summary of the early translation of religious works into Irish by the Anglican Church. The printer here, John Franckton (or Franke), also printed part of the first edition of the New Testament in Irish, which appeared in 1602, also translated by William Daniell (see same lot). Francke worked in Dublin from 1618 until about 1620, importing paper and skins for binding from Chester; he also printed the Irish translation of the Book of Common Prayer in 1608.

The Church of Ireland archbishop of Tuam William Daniel [Uilliam Ó Domhnaill] (c. 1575–1628) was born in Kilkenny and was one of the first three scholars of Trinity College Dublin, being elected junior fellow in 1593. Between 1596 and 1601 he was in Galway. At some time during the 1590s Daniel took upon himself the translation of the New Testament into Irish, a work which finally appeared in 1602, and which led to him securing the treasurership of St Patrick's Cathedral. At the encouragement of Sir Arthur Chichester Daniel then undertook the translation of the Book of Common Prayer into Irish, finishing it and indeed seeing it through the press himself in 1608 (see N.J.S. Williams, ODNB). His reward was his elevation to the archbishopric of Tuam, being consecrated in 1609. The work translates the English Act of Uniformity (rather than the Irish one, which had been passed in the Irish parliament in 1560. The translation then follows the English prayer book or 1604, though omitting both the ordinal and the psalter. It is thought the translation was used quite widely, since the Franciscan Hugh Mac Caughwell became agitated that both this and Daniel's translation of the New Testament "were seducing the Irish from the Catholic faith" (op.cit.) He wrote in 1618 that the Irish Book of Common Prayer was not so much a (leabhar aifrinn 'mass-book') as a (leabhar iffrinn eiriceachda 'book of heretical hell') (quoted by Williams).