On his arrival in Ireland he set up his press in Dublin, and printed there the Prayer Book of Edward VI. with the colophon:—
'Imprinted by Humphrey Powell, printer to the Kynges Maieste, in his Highnesse realme of Ireland dwellynge in the citie of Dublin in the great toure by the Crane Cum Privelegio ad imprimendum solum. Anno Domini, M.D.L.I.'
Timperley, in his Encyclopædia (p. 314), says that Powell continued printing in Dublin for fifteen years, and removed to the southern side of the river to St. Nicholas Street.
In 1571 the first fount of Irish type was presented by Queen Elizabeth to John O'Kearney, treasurer of St. Patrick's, to print the Catechism which appeared in that year from the press of John Franckton. (Reed, Old English Letter Foundries, pp. 75, 186-7.) It was not a Pure Irish character, but a hybrid fount consisting for the most part of Roman and Italic letters, with the seven distinctly Irish sorts added. A copy of the Catechism is exhibited in the King's Library, British Museum, and in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is a copy of a broadside Poem on the last Judgement, sent over to the Archbishop of Canterbury as a specimen.
This type was afterwards used to print William O'Donnell's, or Daniel's, Irish Testament in 1602.