OLD WATERFORD GLASS WATER JUGS. 18th-19th CENTURY.
FIG. 30.
attributed by some to some peculiar quality of the flint employed, which was obtained from pits in the vicinity. Personally, I lean to the former hypothesis. Cork glass, on the other hand, is distinguishable by a pale yellow or amber tint—in all probability the result of the presence of iron. These tones are characteristic, for though the colouring of glass has been brought by modern workers to a fine art, yet no one has succeeded in exactly reproducing them so that, to the expert eye, the genuine old Irish glass is unmistakable.
About the year 1753 the Dublin Society offered a premium for the establishment of a glass factory in County Cork. There seems, however, to have been some reluctance in taking advantage of the offer, for it was not until 1782 that the first glass factory was established there. Then Atwell Hayes, Thomas Burnett and Francis Richard Rowe demanded assistance from Parliament in carrying on the industry. They proposed to erect two houses, one for bottles and one for window glass and, from their advertisements appearing shortly after in the Irish papers, offering to sell glass at their manufactory, and guaranteeing satisfaction, it would appear that their venture met with considerable success.
From 1780 onward Cork exported a good deal of glass. In the year 1801 alone, the considerable number of 111,000 drinking glasses was sent to America, Portugal, and various other places abroad, while in the next year there is record of 6129 dozen bottles and 40,000 drinking glasses being shipped abroad, which indicates a considerable output.
The trouble involved in founding such an industry in those days must have been considerable. In this case, two years were taken up in procuring the necessary concessions, but the industry, once started, took firm root, and the advertisements appearing in the Press—in particular, The Hibernian Chronicle (May 1784) and The Cork New Evening Post (1792), copies of which are preserved in the Museum of Dublin Antiquities, indicate what progress it was making and, incidentally, possess a curious interest from their quaint wording and setting forth.
The following is an example:—