Who makes one of our most famous exports? Is it even still produced here? Michael Kellymeets some of Waterford Crystal's master craftspeople.
'If the furnace goes, the soul goes, too'
TERENCE O'NEILL, MASTER GLASS BLOWER
Master glass blower Terence O'Neill has been with Waterford Crystal for 39 years, having joined in 1968, when he was 15. "It was easy enough to get in at the time, and I loved the blowingroom from the start. It's team-oriented, whereas cutting tends to be singular. There were so many characters, so much banter. It was a great place to be as a young man, and there was plenty of money around."
Salaries were good, but working conditions were not. "There were no such things as health-and-safety regulations," he says. "The heat was unreal in the blowingroom. Most of the masters back then were Germans or Italians - tough men - and if you didn't start at 8am on the dot the master would say, 'I don't want him,' and you'd be gone. There were no tea breaks; we got milk bottles of tea brought in and a half-hour for lunch."
O'Neill's apprenticeship lasted five years; it was another 15 before he became a master. "It takes time to get the skills, especially for heavier pieces. It takes skill and strength to work a two-stone piece of glass on the end of an iron. Glass loses temperature rapidly - in the first minute out of the furnace it loses 300 degrees. If you let it cool too quickly it explodes."
O'Neill is tremendously proud of his work. "My wife says she wishes I cared as much about her as I do about the factory. I've given my whole life to it. We believe we are the best in the world at what we do. There's also immense personal pride when you see a piece of glass and you know your breath has brought it to life."
Of all the crafts used in creating Waterford crystal, perhaps blowing is the most at risk from technology. "In the old days if we had 160 usable glasses out of 200 that would be a good day. Technology means we can have all 200 perfect. Things change. It's a worry whether guys like me will be needed in the future, but the craft element is what makes Waterford unique. The blowingroom is still the life and soul of this company. We are very protective of the furnace, because if it goes, the soul goes, too."
'It's great when you see a piece that you've worked on show up on TV'
PAMELA POWER, SCULPTOR
Pamela Power followed her father into the company when she was 17, spending 11 years in the packingroom before a job notice went up for a sculpting apprenticeship. "There were nine guys going for two jobs, and I got one of them. The task set for the interview was to make a bear from a block of glass, which is tough when you've never been on a wheel before. I suppose I had an eye for it," she says modestly. "Since then pretty much every piece I've worked on has been different."
Power is the company's only craftswoman. "I don't know why," she says. "I suppose not all women want to get their hands dirty, and most of the crafts, like blowing and cutting, are very physical. I was drawn to the artistic side of sculpting."
In April next year Power will qualify as a master sculptor. She is circumspect about what it will mean. "It's an achievement thing, I suppose, and recognition from your peers."
Working in sculpting inevitably means creating the Waterford pieces that end up in the hands of celebrities as they smile from the pages of newspapers. Asked for a highlight, she mentions her meeting with President Clinton. "I sculpted a glass replica of a ruin on the links in Ballybunion for him and ended up meeting him after the presentation. It was amazing - all the things they say about him are true. He said all the right things, telling me that it would have pride of place in the Oval Office. I was also very proud of the glass Irish-dancing shoes which were presented to Michael Flatley, and I've done golf, tennis and grand-prix trophies. It's great when you see a piece that you've worked on show up on TV."
The technological changes that are so apparent in other areas of the company are not in evidence in the sculptingroom. "They haven't impacted on us at all. Everything we do is much as it always was. I joined at a really difficult time for the company - there were guys losing houses - but I was a young girl, and it didn't affect me."
Power has two young boys herself, but neither is likely to follow in her or her father's footsteps. "They have so many other options these days, and I would encourage them to get out and see the world."
'I wanted to honour 9/11'
SEAN EGAN, ENGRAVER
In 1974, at the age of 15, Sean Egan landed a job as an apprentice engraver, but he quit after a week. "When I came clean with my father he was livid and dragged me back, but they had given the job to someone else. He got me another job, as an apprentice cutter, and I did my time - 10 years - before I was a master. I was good at art as a kid and was kicking myself that I had given up the engraving." Many years later, when an engraving apprenticeship was advertised, Egan jumped at the chance. "It was difficult to go back and become an apprentice again, and it was tough to give up the prestige of being a master."
The engraver's tools are tiny copper wheels and a carborundum paste mixed with linseed oil. "Engraving on glass is like an optical illusion, like leaving a footprint in the sand. You can only be taught so much; the rest of it comes from picking up blocks of glass and working at it. Portraits are the hardest; trying to get a likeness of someone's face is very challenging."
Egan's place in Waterford Crystal folklore was assured when he engraved the iconic image of Fr Mychal Judge, New York City Fire Department's chaplain, being carried out of the rubble of the World Trade Center by firemen. "American people kept me in a job for 30 years, so I wanted to do something to honour 9/11. I started work on it in my free time last July and got completely wrapped up in it." Egan spent more than 200 hours working on the piece. "I wasn't sure how it would be taken - whether I would insult people or end up getting sacked, or sued."
The piece may have remained private but for Michael O'Rourke, an FDNY fireman who was on the tourist trail in the factory and saw Egan at work on it. O'Rourke brought the piece to the attention of the authorities in New York, and they brought Egan over for a St Patrick's Day presentation of a larger version to Engine Company No 1. "It was very emotional," says Egan. "I met parents of the firemen who died and Fr Judge's sister. I was worried it would be seen as bad taste, but I think people liked it."
THE ADAM SCOTT AFFAIR
In 2004 Sean Egan was dispatched to Florida to engrave the name of the winning golfer on the Players championship Waterford Crystal trophy. "You are waiting around all week to do five minutes' work. People kept asking me was I nervous, and they asked so many times I started to think maybe I should be nervous." As Adam Scott walked up the 18th with a comfortable lead, Egan got word to start engraving the young Australian's name on the trophy. "I was almost finished his surname when a guy shouted in my ear to stop. Scott had put his ball in the water. Complete panic. There's absolutely nothing you can do once you have engraved on glass." Thankfully, Scott rallied to clinch the tournament. Presumably, the golfer was the second most relieved man on the course that day.
Lots of people imagine that little is made these days at Waterford Crystal's factory in Kilbarry. They assume the work has been outsourced to eastern Europe or Asia. But more than 3.5 million glasses, vases and other pieces are still made in Waterford each year - 85 per cent of the company's output - and almost 70 per cent of the site's 1,074 employees continue to be involved in traditional production.
The methods and product lines have been modernised (including shrewd alliances with designers such as Marc Jacobs, Jasper Conran and John Rocha), but it's a relief to find that this quintessentially Irish product really is Irish and still has craft at its core.
Blowing and cutting haven't changed much since the company was founded in 1947 by Bernard Fitzpatrick and a Czech emigre named Charles Bacik (grandfather of Senator Ivana Bacik).
Waterford's heavy crystal is made using red lead, silica sand and potash, then blown thick to allow it to take deep cuts. The glass is heated to 1,400 degrees in a furnace to produce molten crystal. A blower gathers crystal from the furnace on the end of a blowing iron, then smoothes it with a wooden mould before blowing the piece to its full shape. Crystal pieces are cut to Waterford's unique patterns either by machine or by hand.
"Craft has always been integral to what we do here," says Brian McGee, the company's sales and marketing director, "and it will continue to be. We have to strike a balance between securing the future of this plant and maintaining the crafts."
It is reassuring to learn that in an age when many old crafts are dying off, crystal that is mouth-blown and hand-cut is still regarded as having the highest quality of all.