This is my hundredth blog, or “words” piece as I chose to call it on February 26th last when I was started off by my long suffering daughter/computer engineer/mentor; Caitriona.

Getting my first digital camera a couple of months later has of course added another dimension to the words, but hell, “words and pictures” aint going to fit into the little clicking place on top of my web page so words it will have to remain.

To celebrate the hundredth (no great deal I know when compared to Caitriona recently passing 500 ) I decided to show a little of one of my great passions which I have previously only referred to
En Passant; my glass collection.

My friend Clive Nunn was always interested in old glass and I guess that is what started me looking at it.
He had a good collection of old Rummers which I made spectacular efforts to break my way through while having enjoyed their contents a little too much while Chez Nunn

In the summer of 1989 we went on holiday with my brother and sister in law, Una and Martin and rented a gite near Les Eyzies de Tayac in the Dordogne.
In an old Armoire in the dining room there I found some glasses with which I instantly fell in love.
This is an affaire which has lasted through faithfully to today, 16 years later.

Martin, Una and I dining Al Fresco in the Dordogne

A close up of what we were drinking out of.

It took all of Sile’s integrity to persuade me not to rob some of these to take back to Ireland.

However the following year, while we were on holiday, this time in the Cote d’Azur, I found my very own , similar glasses at a Foire de Brocante in Fayence.
This was the start of a collecting mania which, at times , has resembled an addiction.

The Fayence Glass.

At the time I remember being a little peeved that someone had gouged a line in on the bowl of the glass.
It took a chance encounter with a painting by Manet before I realised that I had now become a collector of Absinthe Glasses.

Manet’s Absinthe Drinker

There it was my exact glass!
This was a very exciting moment.
The line in the glass of course was merely to indicate the level to which the spirit should be poured.

Even more exciting was coming across a mysterious painting by the Swiss artist Ihly.
This showed the very same glass, cracked and badly chipped, but still full of Absinthe, used by what we would now call a “Wino”.
It is mysterious because no-one has ever been able to make out what it is in his mouth.
(As a total aside I was once asked, by e mail, where this picture hung. The request came from a Swiss doctor who wanted to use it as an illustration in a book he was writing on Alcoholism and he wanted to get permission from the museum.
The bizarre truth, which I was able to tell him was that it was hung in the museum of his home town in Switzerland)
This painting was likely intended to be a lesson on the evils of drinking, what was shortly to become a prohibited drink; Absinthe.

Ihly’s Absinthe Drinker

I was now away on a hack and nothing was ever going to stop my headlong acquisition of these glasses.
The Absinthe Glass of France was just the pub glass of its day.
Very sturdy (just as well considering my previous attempts to decimate Clive’s Rummers) they came in all shapes and sizes made for everything from beer to liqueurs.
I collected them all.

Having a restaurant gave me the ultimate excuse as I decorated all the walls with shelves full of glasses. I persuaded the same Clive Nunn to redesign the dining room of the restaurant to give me even more space to display my treasures.

One of the Restaurant Glass display Dressers

In the fullness of time I was asked by Mary Boydell, the doyenne of Irish Glass, to address the glass society of Ireland on my collection of Absinthe Glasses.
One of the great thrills of my life!

One of the advantages of that particular moment was that to prepare a Powerpoint presentation for that lecture I managed to persuade Caitriona to photograph lots of my glasses.
Now, with most of them in storage,I at least have something to oogle, and some pictures with which to illustrate this piece.

Of course the passion very quickly spread byond the confines of Absinthe Glasses and very soon I was collecting glass from different places and with many different uses.

Among my favourites are these Toastmasters Glasses

Which were made deceptively shallow to avoid the utter inebriation of the man calling for “Health”
But then Mary Boydell says they could also be “Penny Licks” which were the precurser of the Ice Cream cone.

Whichever they are I love them dearly and, you have been warned, this 100th blog will be the first of many about my collection of glasses.

Now I think we should raise our glasses for a toast to the first 100!