r8 M. S. D. Westropp on 



to the ground when nearly completed, and in the latter accident 

 he was almost buried in the ruins. His persevering spirit was not 

 to be subdued, so he set forward his works for the third time in 

 the form of a cone, which remained unimpaired until very lately 

 pulled down. The warehouses and offices which still remain 

 prove the capaciousness of his ideas. Mr. Fitzsimons succeeded 

 to the business, which he carried on with reputation ; it devolved 

 to his son, but, proving injurious to his health, it declined in his 

 hands, and he became simply an importer of English glass." 

 From this account it would appear that Roche did not set up his 

 glass-house till after 1690, but from the entries in the St. Michan's 

 Registers there must have been a glass-house in the vicinity much 

 earlier than this. Roche appears to have had as partners Richard 

 and Christopher Fitzsimons, for in the will of Richard Fitzsimons, 

 who died in 1711, he (Fitzsimons) bequeaths to the children of 

 his late brother Christopher his one-third share in the glass- 

 house, which he bought from said Christopher. Philip Roche, 

 who lived in Finglas, died in December, 1713, and bequeathed 

 ;^20 to the son of the widow Fitzsimons, £^^ each to John Lynch 

 and Philip Hudson at the glass-house, and to Mrs. Fitzsimons for 

 the use of her children the first ;^'ioo coming to him out of the 

 glass-house. A Christopher Fitzsimons seems to have carried on 

 the manufacture after Roche's death. In 1755 Christopher Fitz- 

 simons petitioned Parliament for aid to carry on the manufacture 

 of flint glass in Dublin, and the same name appears in Dublin 

 directories from about 1760 to 1779 as that of a glass merchant, 

 at No. I George's Hill. It is said that the proprietor of the glass- 

 house became bankrupt in 1785, and that in 1787 the site was 

 sold and the glass-house pulled down. In the following year a 

 a convent was erected in its place. 



Roche's glass-house appears to have been situated on the 

 piece of ground bordering on Mary's Lane, between George's Hill 

 and Bradogue Lane (now Halston Street). It is marked on maps 

 of 1756, 1773, and 1787, but no mention of it occurs in Dublin 

 directories of these dates ; and the latest reference to it in the 

 newspapers appears in 1759. Probably it ceased work about 1760, 



