i6 M. S. D. Westropp on 



erected by Abraham Bigo, were discovered about forty years ago 

 at Clonbrone, near Clonoghill, outside Birr. 



Besides the glass-house near Birr carried on by Abraham 

 Bigo, Philip Bigo, m 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 as yet been found. An Abraham 

 Bigo is stated to have had a glass house at the Isle of Purbeck, in 

 1623, but whether he was the one who had the glass-house at Birr 

 is not known. 



The following reference to a licence for making glass in Cork 

 occurs in the Egmont manuscripts. Vol. I., page 118 : — "Thomas 

 Bettesworth to Sir Philip Percival, July 21st, 1640, Moallo. I 

 wrote to you about ten days since of an expedient which did relate 

 to the good Lord President about procuring a licence for making 

 glass from the patentee. I beseech you Sir be studious about the 

 glass licence or else there falls to the ground a strong and sublime 

 project unto which nothing probably can give impediment but the 

 want of a moderate composition. And if such an one may not be 

 had the Lady of Doneraile will be prohibited of a spacious ex- 

 pectation and I myself also blurrefied, who dare presume to call 

 myself the projector." 



About the year 1667 an Annanias Henzey obtained from the 

 Crown a grant of lands in the King's County, but no mention is 

 made of the land he rented near Portarlington. The Henzeys 

 (De Hennezel) were, like the Bigos (De Bigault) originally Lor- 

 raine glass-makers, who came over to England about the middle 

 of the sixteenth century. The De Hennezel family are first men- 

 tioned in connection with England about the year 1568, when 

 Thomas and Balthazar de Hennezel, of the glass-houses of Vosges 

 in Lorraine, were brought over by John Carye. The family seems 

 to have settled at first in Sussex and afterwards to have wandered 

 to Buckholt Wood, near Salisbury, and later on to the neighbour- 

 hood of Stourbridge; while, in 1695, Peregrine Henzell, John 

 Henzell, Jacob Henzell and Peregrine Tizack petitioned the Eng- 

 lish House of Commons for aid to carry on the manufacture of 

 glass near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 



