Ballycastle is well known as a seaside resort and its main claim to fame, is its ‘Ould Lammas Fair’. In the 18th century it was a very important industrial centre. This was due to the work of Hugh Boyd the young landlord who opened collieries, built a brewery, four tanyards, a soap works, a salt works, a chandlery, a bleach works and an iron works. In addition, he built a fine inn beside the customs house (now The Marine Hotel) and a Manor House (now Dr. Barnardo’s Home). He spent £30,000 in the construction of a harbour and an inner dock (now the Ballycastle Tennis Courts and Bowling Green) and although the Irish Parliament made a grant of £23,000 towards this project Ballycastle failed in its efforts to become a port of importance, owing to strenuous opposition from the City of Derry.
In 1754, the Ballycastle Glass House Company was formed and in a Dublin newspaper – Pue’s Occurrences of June 8th 1754, it is stated that “there is a glasshouse erecting at Ballycastle by a Company for the making of bottles, widow glass, plate glass etc., which when finished will be as complete a building of the kind as any in Europe”.
The glassworks were erected on a site close to the east side of the Inner Dock of the old harbour and near the wooden footbridge which crossed the Margy River. The plot of ground on which they stood has always been known as the Glass Island. The Glass Kiln was similar to the English Glass House or the verrerie Anglaise as illustrated in Diderot’s Encyclopedia. It was a cone shaped building, ninety feet high and about sixty feet in diameter at the base. It was built of red bricks made from clay obtained on Millar’s farm at Brackney in Glenshesk (now occupied by Mr. A. McCaughan). The date of erection – 1755 – was formed by projecting bricks on the west side about halfway up.
In the Dublin Journal of October 14th, 1755 there is a report – “The Ballycastle Glasshouse and warehouse and all the materials thereto belonging, being now finished and ready to go to work, the public both in Dublin and in all sea ports in the Kingdom may be served with any quantity of bottles they please to bespeak as vessels with coal from thence may bring bottles to any seaport and as said glass house is sixty feet in diameter in the clear. Capable of carrying on the said manufacture in all its branches, the proprietors in time intend to make window glass and other plate glass, which must be of great advantage to the nation.”
Why did the glass industry start here? It has been suggested that since Hugh Boyd already owned the Colliery, “having fuel on the spot induced the proprietors to establish glass manufacture”. However, it is just as likely that since Hugh Boyd had recently built a brewery, the manufacture of bottles would seem a complementary development. But there were other factors in the establishment of this industry. Firstly suitable sand was freely available nearby. The sand seems to have been taken from the sand dune system – now Ballycastle Golf Links and obviously the area from which it was taken was the hollow between the sixth tee and the large sand bunker. Secondly, lime was easily obtained from the Whiterocks Quarry less than a quarter of a mile away. Thirdly, seaweed was available for making kelp which provided the necessary soda ash. In fact, at this time kelp-making was a major industry along the Antrim coast and the kelp was exported to Glasgow for the manufacture of chemicals. Fourthly, suitable fireclay was available in the area for the making of crucibles or melting pots for the glass. In John Angels, A General History of Ireland he states “there is recently discovered at Ballycastle a stratum of clay over the coal which is found to be as strong in the glasshouse pots as the Clay of Stourbridge and to endure the heat as well”.
Local tradition has it that there were six glass blowers employed in the works. One of these was Lochy Black, a native of Rathlin Island. Two others were Richard Johnson and James Hill. John Magawley was the manager of the glass works and lived in a house on the Quay Road side of The Marine Hotel. His grandson Dick Magawley lived in this same house and rented a small farm near Drummahaman Bridge and was for some time manager of the collieries. His headstone in Bunamargy Graveyard has the following inscription.
Richard Magawley’s burying place of Drumagoley (Drumavoley),
Here lies his brother William who died
22nd January 1814 aged 27 years.
Also his father James, who died
17th December 1819, aged 74 years.
Five men were employed in a squad when making glass bottles and the squad was known as a chair. The work was distributed as follows. The gatherer took a blob of glass from the melting pot on an iron blowpipe and rolled it into shape on an iron slab known as the mavver.
The blower blew the blob of glass into a bulbous shape. In the case of bottle-making a mould was also used. The “wetter off” separated the glass from the blowpipe by touching the hot glass with a wet stick. The hot glass cracked where it was touched with the water. The maker made the neck or collar of molten glass and completed the bottles. The taker-in returned the finished article to a ‘lehr’ or annealing oven. In the making of window glass the blower blew a large thin bulb. The end of the bulb was cut off and the blow pipe was spun rapidly over a pit. The open end of the bulb flared out like a dancer’s skirt and became a flat circular sheet. Irregularities were smoothed out with the smoother – an instrument like a plaster’s trowel. When the pane of glass was detached from the blowpipe a lump of glass was left in the centre – known as a bullion. This was the origin for the bulls-eye glass which is seen in the windows of old houses or in those that are pretending to be old.
In a pane of Ballycastle glass, spinning lines can be seen near the bullion. Some panes of Ballycastle glass can be seen in Holy Trinity Church – the Diamond. There are several items of Ballycastle glass in the Belfast Museum, a wine glass, a large goblet, two cordial glasses. In The National Museum in Dublin there is a bowl of Ballycastle Glass about 8” in diameter and 4 ½” high. It was donated to the museum by Mrs. F.W. Woods of Dublin. Her maiden name was Gorden and her people lived in the house near the Glasshouse. Lumps of glass can still be found on Ballycastle beach. It is strange that this splendid industry with all the locally available materials should have ceased after only thirty years. One cause of its failure was the Act of Parliament of 1746 which placed a duty on the materials used in the manufacture of glass and also stated that no glass of any kind was to be exported from Ireland under a penalty of ten shillings for every pound so exported. Secondly, Hugh Boyd the proprietor of the glass works left a will charging the collieries to deliver to the Glass house 250 tons of coal every month for 199 years from the date of his death at the rate of six shillings per ton. Boyd died in June 1765 (and 199 years after his death was June 1964 when coal was twelve pounds per ton). In 1780, the Glass house was thrown idle in consequence of the cheap supply of coals attached to it being withheld by the successors of the aforesaid Hugh Boyd. The following year the glass house and premises was leased from the trustees of Hugh Boyd by one of his family who now enjoyed the estate and colliery at a small rent of £50 per annum for twenty one years, this in order to keep the glass works idle and save the regular and cheap monthly supply of coal ordered by Hugh Boyd’s will. Subsequently the machinery was sold and the glass industry had come to an end.
On January 4th 1974, at the request of the Moyle District council, the Historic Monuments Branch of the Department of Finance commenced a three-week rescue excavation. The recent excavation work was supervised by Mr. G. Bowie of the Institute of Irish Studies and centred on the basement and working floor levels of the kiln which still survive.
Part of an arched air flue and its associated ash pan are now exposed and some interesting secondary furnaces have been found.
Mr. Bowie and his team have also collected a range of glass bottle sherds from the kiln’s charcoal coal working layers (1755-1800).
Unfortunately, due to the exposed nature of the Glass Island site and its proximity to the sea, the possibility of full-scale preservation is not considered feasible and regrettably, most of the excavation will require backfilling.
The District Council are, however hoping to preserve the site and are presently considering some form of surface marking outlining the original construction.
From The Glynns, Volume 2, 1974.