The last independent publisher of Catholic books in Ireland, the Columba Book Service, has gone into liquidation. The religious publishing house, founded as Columba Press in 1984 by Sean O’Boyle, was known for backing provocative Catholic theologians.
“When Columba started out there were hundreds of men in seminaries. As this number has decreased, so has the market for our books,” explained the Columba Book Service’s former managing director, Fearghal O’Boyle. Sales also declined as allegations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church received widespread media attention in the early 1990s.
“People just wanted out. They were not interested in reading academic works about religion,” Mr O’Boyle explained, adding: “The feeling that I get is that, over the years, the audience for our books has been getting older, and it wasn’t being replaced at the younger end.”
Although the Columba Book Service had been breaking even in recent years, there were historic debts and an accounts report showed that as of April 2016 the company had an estimated net deficit of liabilities over assets of €234,069 (£203,288). As a result the company had no option other than to seek a court order winding the firm up. As an independent publisher, the Columba Book Service often provided a platform for authors who would otherwise not have been published.
“We are proud that as a publisher we facilitated the promulgation of ideas that others preferred to silence,” Mr O’Boyle said, adding that he hoped another publishing company would step in to take on Columba’s backlist of 350 titles still in print.
The Columba Book Service published across a broad range of subjects, including pastoral resources, spirituality, theology, the arts and history. At its height, it published 35 new titles a year.
One of its major successes was The Glenstal Book of Prayer, which sold more than 150,000 copies worldwide and topped the bestsellers list in Ireland for 18 weeks in 2001. Its authors included the theologians James P. Mackey, Fr Daniel J. O’Leary, Fr Mark Patrick Hederman, Fr Pat Collins, Fr Tony Flannery, Fr Seán Fagan and Fr Brian D’Arcy.
Author and Redemptorist priest Fr Flannery, who credits Columba with his first break in publishing after it printed his book The Death of Religious Life in 1997, said it had played a significant role in publishing theological and religious writing in Ireland.
Although Mr O’Boyle believes the closure of the Columba Book Service does not signal the end of all independent Christian book publishers, he does believe the dominance of online retailers and the “loss of the art of browsing” is putting those remaining at risk. “I don’t see that changing any time soon,” he concluded.
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