Irishlives

Charles Bacík 1910-1991

CHARLES BACIK, co-founder of modern Waterford Glass, later Waterford Crystal, was born in Nova Rise, near Prague, Czechoslovakia, on June 25th, 1910, the second son of Dr Karel Bacik and his wife, Milada, née Hora. He graduated from Charles University, Prague, with a science degree in 1931. In 1933 he married Edith Starch and they had four children, Milada, Edith, Karel, and Jindrich. Bacik began work in an administrative capacity in the glass-works business in Svetla, south-east of Prague, in 1935. Some sources say that after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia he became involved in the resistance movement and was imprisoned in 1940 for a year and a half. By the time of the communist takeover, he was a successful businessman, owning four glass factories.

Bacik fled to Ireland in 1946. While in Czechoslovakia he had met a Dublin gift-shop owner, Bernard J Fitzpatrick. Bacik contacted him in Ireland. He then took out a life insurance policy and, using this and other borrowed funds amounting to £15,000, he approached Waterford corporation and chamber of commerce to procure a site for a glass factory. Fitzpatrick was also an investor. They secured a site at Ballytruckle, outside Waterford, and the first sod for the new factory was turned on April 3rd, 1947. Initially, they imported cheap glass and cut it on site. Progress was slow and expensive. The new company was in financial difficulty.

By 1949 Waterford Glass was insolvent. The Irish Glass Bottle Company takeover proceeded in February 1950. Bacik continued to work for the new company. He formally retired as technical manager in 1974, though he remained on the board of the Waterford Glass Group until his resignation in November 1984. Bacik was a member of the Knights of Malta, and was president of the European Hand-Made Glass Federation. He died on July 11th, 1991, at Rathmore House, Fiddown, Co Kilkenny.

His granddaughter Ivana Bacik (b. 1969) was president of the TCD student union (1989–90) and was appointed Reid professor of criminal law at TCD (1996). She was an unsuccessful Labour Party candidate for Dublin in the 2004 European elections and was elected to Seanad Éireann for Dublin University in 2007.

Adapted from the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography. See dib.ie