County: Kilkenny Site name: GLASS HOUSE, Gorteens
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0269
Author: Maurice F. Hurley
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 665736m, N 613052m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.265241, -7.036951
Testing of the environs of Glass House, Gorteens, Co. Kilkenny, was undertaken in April 2001. It is intended to restore Glass House and associated yards. Only one new building is proposed and this is a linking building. The trial-trenches were excavated on the line of the proposed drainage.
There is no written or cartographic evidence for the exact location of the early 18th-century glassworks at Gorteens, but it was assumed that they lay somewhere in the vicinity of the house. In view, however, of the size, fuel requirement and danger of the kiln, it is possible that the glass furnace was located downslope from the house — possibly close to the old quay. The quay area is not included in the current development application, consequently it did not form part of the assessment.
Overall, the tested soil showed a very homogeneous profile, with c. 0.2–0.5m of topsoil over yellow subsoil with shale. There was remarkably little domestic refuse in the form of broken tableware, bottles etc. There were no 18th-century glass bottles, table glass or sherds of window glass apart from in the walled garden, where sherds of tableware were evidently incorporated in the soil with compost or manure. The surrounds of the house were maintained remarkably hygienically with little signs of dumping of domestic waste, except for the wooded bank of the north-east yard.
There was no evidence for furnaces, wasters, slag or any other indication of glass-making in the areas tested. Given the likely extent of an 18th-century glass furnace, the absence of evidence for glass-working over an extensive area surrounding the house is taken to indicate that, wherever the glassworks was located, it was not adjacent to the house or yards. The absence of evidence must necessarily focus attention on the riverfront as a possible location for the glass furnace. As the furnace was likely to have been fired with coal, the offloading of imported fuel may have necessitated a furnace site closer to the riverbank. The site of the little fishing hamlet of Gorteens (where the ruins of six or eight small stone-walled houses still stand, as shown in the first edition OS map) is one possible location. The railway line resulted in the demolition of part of this hamlet and a track now separates this area from the riverfront, which has been developed as the new port of Belview.
312 Bruach na Laoi, Union Quay, Cork
