CALLAGHAN, Timothy John (1819?-1884) — Cork
Engraver, lithographer, printer & photographer. Produced, as ‘Callaghan Bros’, Matrimonial map ca.1850, featuring such geographical features as the Great Ocean of Love, the Dead Lake of Indifference, Rocks of Ice, Divorce Island, etc.
Born about 1819, his name is variously rendered as both Callaghan and O’Callaghan. As a boy, he featured in a forgery trial over some doctored bank-notes, he having engraved the word “three” which the forgers pasted over the original “one” (Southern Reporter, 2 Aug 1836). He married Jane Logan, with whom he had a number of children, in 1841. Trading as ‘Callaghan Brothers’, he and his brother Jeremiah Callaghan took over the business of Mary Unkles in or before 1845, offering to undertake “maps, plans of estates, portraits, and drawings of every description, music, book plates and titles, bankers’ cheques, letters of credit, etc.” (Southern Reporter, 12 Sep 1846). A dispute over his non-payment (at ten shillings per mile of line) for the engraving of official railway maps in 1845 spilled over into a very public spat in the press (Southern Reporter, 8 Nov 1845; Cork Examiner, 17 Nov 1845; Dublin Evening Packet, 22 Nov 1845, etc.) The brothers appear to have spent some time abroad before returning to Cork, announcing “Callaghan Brothers, practical lithographic artists, engravers and printers, have spent many years as workmen in the first lithographic houses in the world, and are now prepared to execute in their native city, every description of lithography in the first style of the art, at reasonable charges. C. Brothers, respectfully solicit attention to their specimens, on exhibition, at their establishment, in maps, plans, chalk and line drawings, business, invitation, programme, and visiting cards; circular letters, addresses, invoices, account heads, law forms, prices current, show-cards, and labels of every description in gold and colors. C. Brothers, have also, in connection with their lithographic office, a photographic studio, and are enabled, from a long experience in this beautiful art, to execute and print views from nature, paintings, works of art, etc., with facility and despatch” (Cork Daily Herald, 6 Feb 1860). The brothers were declared insolvent debtors in 1861 (Cork Examiner, 31 Dec 1861). The following year Timothy alone, now trading as T. J. Callaghan, was once more advertising, noting that his “recent importation of lithographic stones from Solenhofen, in Bavaria, surpassing in closeness of texture all those hitherto used, will be found to yield impressions fully equal to the finest steel or copper plate engraving” (Southern Reporter, 26 May 1862). An advertisement in the Cork Daily Herald 19 May 1866 gives detailed advice on what to wear. He died in St. Patrick’s Hospital Cork 9 Jan 1884 aged sixty-four.
(Cork Lithographic Printing Office), 70 South Mall, Cork — 1845-1846
— Sunday’s Well, Cork (home) — 1845
45 South Mall, Cork — 1861-1881
— and 33 Quaker Road, Cork (home) — 1861
— 30 Kyrl’s Quay, Cork (home) – 1881-1884
BNA. LHD.