PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY 



PAPERS READ BEFORE THE ACADEMY 



I. 



NOTES ON THE POTTEEY MANUFACTURE IN IRELAND. 



By M. S. DUDLEY WESTEOPP. 



Plates I-III. 



Head February 10. Published May 15, 1913. 



Dueixg early times pottery of a coarse kind was made in Ireland, but 

 nothing appears to be known relating to its manufacture. The earliest 

 pottery extant are the food-vessels, cinerary urns, and incense-cups, dating 

 from the Bronze Age. Large quantities of pottery have been found in the 

 Irish erannogs ; but dates are rather uncertain, as the crannogs lasted down 

 to Elizabethan times. Encaustic tiles of about the thirteenth century to the 

 fifteenth, which have been found in large quantities in Irish cathedrals and 

 monasteries, may possibly have been made in the country. A reference 

 to their having been manufactured in monasteries occurs early in the 

 thirteenth century. 



During mediaeval times wooden vessels, and later on those of pewter, 

 were more generally used tban earthenware, and consequently the manufac- 

 ture of the latter was probably very small. 



Coming down to a more recent period the following reference to the 

 manufacture of coarse pottery occurs in the Egmont Manuscripts, vol. ii., 

 page 128: — "Lord Shannon to Sir John Percival, March 13th, 1682-3, 

 Shannonpark. I am importuned by the bearer to give you the trouble, who 

 is a potter that lives near me; he serves all Cork and the country about it, he 

 has made pipes for me to save leaden ones, that holds very well, as also 

 flower pots for gardens.-" 



R.I.A. PROC, VOL. XXXII., SECT. C. [1] 



