We started the day with a trek into the “country” to visit the Carew relatives in Rossmore. The family has run the post office and the small general store there for many years. We also wanted to take the opportunity to go to Mass there even though the current church is the 3rd one on the grounds.
The two stones set in the building proclaiming its uses.
graveyard where many of the Carews are buried. It was “fun” for Will given his interest in ancestry (both his family and mine).
Just about everyone except Mom who was taking the picture. They make us feel like giants.
They also run a dairy farm – this is one of their barns.
After hanging out with the family for a while, we headed off to Waterford. As you might expect, our main goal was the Waterford Crystal factory. We had a bit of a time finding some place to park the car – turned out that there was a food and wine festival in town that was blocking off many of the streets and making parking very difficult.
It’s a new factory in the middle of the city so we were afraid that things would be different. They were but thankfully only in the showroom and not on the actual tour – it happens to be my favorite factory tour ever. I just love how they’re just right there making beautiful crystal and you’re free to take all the pictures you want.
The tour starts with the wooden molds that they use to shape special pieces (later we would learn that for standard pieces, they have permanent cast iron molds in place of the wooden ones). 
We thought Les might enjoy having this band saw.
Next up, my favorite part. The glass blowing. 
The hot glass kiln. This guy was hilarious because he was singing the whole time he was working.
Here he’s using one of the cast iron moulds because this is a standard piece of crystal.
The next step is both cool and a bit scary as they have to separate the bowl from the blowing rod. They use cold water to score the crystal and then have to lightly tap it to break the piece off. 
Success! Now he’s got to get his “ove-gloves” on and race off to finish the cooling process.
Next – polishing off those edges where the piece separated. We finally decided that these pieces were going to be hanging light fixtures so they had to make their first transformation to, essentially, big bowls. 
Next up – marking and cutting. Time to make it really start looking like the Waterford Crystal we all know and love. By the way, this is my next my favorite part of the tour mostly because they let you get so close and some times the cutters will talk to you or specifically show you something. 
The picture on the right is the design for a special order piece – and award or prize I think but for what, I can’t remember.
these two guys (and most of the others at work that day) were cutting what were most likely Lismore footed bowls. Very traditional cuts.
This guy was working on the neck of a decanter. Probably something like this.
We think these were the almost finished products of the pieces they had been blowing and polishing the edges of earlier in the tour. The big flat “bowls” with a smallish hole in the center was how we came to conclude that they were likely to become light fixtures. Something like this.
Gratuitous shots of the tools lying around.
The next step in the process is an acid bath, if I remember correctly. It’s the step that takes a very small layer of the crystal off each piece thus removing the dull sheen left behind by the cutting process and producing the beautiful sparkle of the crystal. Because it’s an acid bath and somewhat dangerous, they do the final steps off premises.
The showroom is no longer anywhere near as impressive as the old visitors center which had a gorgeous Dale Chihuly chandelier over their main information and check out desk. But all in all it’s still a fantastic place to visit. 
Afterward we made our way to Wexford finding a fantastic B&B called Kilbora run by a fabulously hilarious woman from Connecticut (she married an Irishman, had 3 kids in Boston, and then they moved back to run the family farm). Sadly, tourism is down so much that she was saying that she may have to close up and focus on other projects.
View Ireland - Day 5 in a larger map
Day 1: Arrival, Adare, Tralee
Day 2: Dingle Peninsula Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Day 3: Kilarney, Muckross House
Day 4: Rock of Cashel
No comments:
Post a Comment