Hoey, James (d. 1775), printer, publisher, bookseller and circulating library keeper, had premises in Dublin at Pembroke Court, Castle St. (1725–6), Christ Church Yard (1726–8) and Skinner Row (1729–75). As a catholic he became a quarter-brother of the stationers’ guild (1729). He was a kinsman of George Faulkner (qv), whose press and Dublin Journal he ran while the latter was in London (1726) and with whom he continued to be associated. Though apprenticed, it appears, to an ironmonger, not to a printer, and himself an indifferent printer, he had great success in the book trade, concentrating on the popular market. Much of his trade was country trade; he dealt in more children's titles and schoolbooks than was usual. He was running a circulating library in 1735 and 1736, the earliest known in Dublin. For some years (1770–75 if not earlier) he printed the Dublin Mercury. Hoey died in May 1775. It was stated by an anonymous friend in 1805 that he had been ‘of uncommon wit and humour’, ‘superior to his relation and partner George Faulkner in literature’ and his shop ‘the resort of all the talents of his day’. By his first wife, Elizabeth, James Hoey had a son James; by his second wife, Jane B— (surname not spelt out at source), whom he married in 1739 and who died in 1787, he had a son Peter.
The younger James Hoey (1730s?–82) worked in Skinner Row with his father until 1764, when he was helped by the latter to set up business in Parliament St., where he may have continued to print the Dublin Mercury. Among his larger undertakings was Butler's Lives of the fathers (6 vols, 1766). As a catholic he took the oath of allegiance under the relief act (1778). By 1782 he was also selling wholesale and retail Anderson's pills. It was stated in 1805 that he had been a favourite with the lord lieutenant, Viscount Townshend (qv), and a contributor to the table-talk at Dublin Castle. He married (1769) Jane (née Denn) of Saggart, Co. Dublin, who after his death (May 1782) carried on his bookselling business until her own death (February 1787). Their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married the earl of Shrewsbury (1792), but died childless (1847).
His half-brother, Peter Hoey (d. 1813), carried on their father's business, inheriting his printing materials and stock but moving (in 1789) from Skinner Row to Upper Ormond Quay. Peter Hoey's speciality was popular books. He took the oath of allegiance (1778) and did well enough in his trade to be able to subscribe to the General Insurance Company against Fire (1779). He was active in the political reform movement (1780s), an early but inactive member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen (1791–4) and, when Irish politics became violent, was said by a government informant to be ‘ill disposed’ (c.1798). Requests by Peter Hoey and seven other catholics for admission as ‘freemen’ were refused by Dublin corporation (1793). An attempt by Hoey to fill the office of churchwarden at a vestry meeting at St Michan's parish was prevented on the ground of his being a catholic (1795). He married (January 1775) Margaret Woods and by her had two daughters who continued his business after his death (June 1813).