The “reel store” in The Irish Times printing facility in Citywest, Dublin, is vast, calm and orderly. Roll upon roll of newsprint paper is carefully wrapped, stacked and ready for action.
Each roll weighs in at 1.3 metric tonnes and is over 23km long, according to operations manager Donal O’Brien. Different grades of paper are used for different parts of the weekend newspaper. The weight of the paper used to print the newspaper can be half that of paper used in the magazine.
The “ink farm” used for the storage and distribution of ink is similarly serene. Here there are two large tanks for black ink, by far the largest volume required to print the newspapers, and then one for yellow, one for cyan and one for magenta. The combination of these creates all the colours required.
Pre-press and the “quiet room” areas are where the action heats up. Pre-press tasks are performed here on screen, pages are set, and PDFs are checked for font, colours and image resolution. The pre-press staff are fully focused, and absolute concentration is demanded as deadlines loom. It’s here that any last-minute changes can be made, colour management finalised and then files sent to the presses.
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The last stop is the mail room. The noise builds up and the place is busy with newspapers and magazines swirling about on overhead conveyors at breakneck speed. Every corner of the huge hall has aerial action. A broadsheet ballet.
Supplements and magazines are matched to their respective titles as they pass through the inserting machine. Once the newspapers leave the press hall they are stacked, bundled, strapped, labelled, and ready for distribution.
The Irish Times facility has three presses, meaning it can print three different titles at the same time. Each press can run at speeds of up to 70,000 copies per hour.
During this particular visit, the staff printed a total of 350,000 newspapers across 11 different titles, and started distributing them to all corners of the country for the following morning.
