Wkstropp — Glass-Making in Ireland. 35 



work on any other land, or to bny any wood of any other for his glass-work, 

 but only of said Parsons. This glass ho^^se appears to have been carried on 

 until Easter, 1627, when the lease was siirrendered. 



Eemaius of an old glass house, which may have been that erected by 

 Bigo, were discovered about forty years ago at Clonbrone, near Birr. 



The Bigo family appear to have been refugee glass-makers from France, 

 who came to England and finally settled in Ireland early in the seventeenth 

 century. Besides the Birr glass-works carried on by Abraham Bigo, Philip 

 Bigo, in the reign of Charles II, obtained grants of land in the neighbourhood, 

 and is said to have established glass-works, but no traces of them have yet 

 been found. 



Most of the glass houses erected in Ireland after about the middle of the 

 seventeenth century being in towns, those in the several towns will be noted 

 separately under the town in which each was situated. 



Dublin. 



The earliest record of a glass house in Dublin occurs in the second half of 

 the seventeenth century, though exactly when it was set up is not at present 

 known — probably about 1670. 



In D' Alton's " History of the County of Dublin" mention is made of a 

 glass house having been erected by a Captain Philip Eoche, presumably late 

 in the seventeenth century. 



This glass house was probably in Mary's Lane, Dublin, as it is stated that 

 it was afterwards carried on by a Mr. Fitzsimons ; and a Christopher Fitzsimons 

 was proprietor of a glass factory in this locality early in the eighteenth 

 century. 



In the Parish Eegisters of St. Michan's Church, Dublin, several entries 

 occur, from the year 1677, relating to glass-makers, and in March, 1696 (o.s.), 

 there are entries of the burial of the following seven persons who were killed 

 by the fall of the glass house, viz. : — William Loecraft, Daniel Smith, Charles 

 Wheaton, Bartholomew Elvers, John Eobinson, William Leasy, and Laurence 

 Hughes. The glass house was probably soon rebuilt and the manufacture of 

 glass continued. 



Philip Eoche, who lived at Finglas, died in December, 1713; and in his 

 will, amongst other bequests, left £20 to the son of the widow Fitzsimons, 

 £5 each to John Lynch and Phihp Hudson at the glass house, and to 

 Mrs. Fitzsimons, for the use of her children, the first £100 coming to him out 

 of the glass house. 



Fitzsimons probably carried on the manufacture after Eoche's death, his 

 name being the only one afterwards mentioned in connexion with the factory. 



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