[ 34 ] 



III. 



GLASS-MAKING IN lEELAKD. 



By M. S. D. WESTEOPP. 



Plates VII.-IX. 



fEead Februart 27. Published April 1, 1911.] 



Nothing appears to be known at present about any manufacture of glass 

 in Ireland previous to the close of the sixteenth century, and even for a 

 considerable time after that the records are very scanty. 



In the year 1589 one George Longe, in a petition to Lord Burleigh 

 (Lansdowne MSS.) asking for a patent for making glass, proposed to reduce 

 the number of glass works in England, and to set up eleven new glass houses 

 in Ireland. 



Longe stated in his petition that he had found the materials and had 

 brought to perfection the making of glass in Ireland, having employed at 

 least twenty-four persons for two years, and spent upwards of £600 on the 

 imdertaking. He also stated that he bought the patent for glass-making in 

 Ireland from Captain Thomas Woodhouse, who, together with a Ealph Pylling, 

 assisted him in setting up two glass houses. Woodhouse had obtained a patent 

 in 1588 for eight years for making glass in Ireland. 



Nothing further, however, seems to be known concerning any glass mad e 

 in Ireland by Longe, or even where his glass houses were situated. 



In 1608 an Adam Whitty of Ai'klow obtained a licence to manufacture 

 glass in Leinster for ten years. 



The next record we have relates to a glass house near Birr early in the 

 seventeenth century. In " Ireland's Naturall History," by Gerard Boate, 

 published in 1652, it is stated that, early in the centmy, several glass houses 

 were set up in Ireland by the English, among the principal of which was 

 that near Bii-r, which was said to have supplied DubHa with drinking-glasses 

 and window glass. Boate also states that at this period no glass houses were 

 erected in Dublin or other towns, but all in the country ; and that the sand 

 for glass-making came from England ; the alkali was obtained locally from 

 the ash-tree, and that the clay for the pots came from the north. 



Cooke's "History of Birr" states that in 1623 Sir Lawrence Parsons 

 granted a lease of part of the lands of ClonoghiU, near Bkr, to Abraham Bigo, 

 with a proviso that the tenant was not to set up any glass house or glass- 



