MARY BOYDELL:MARY BOYDELL, who has died shortly after her 89th birthday, was an authority on Irish glass and her contribution to its study has been of huge significance and is a legacy to future generations.
She started buying 18th-century table glass in the 1940s, when it could often be picked up for less money than for a contemporary equivalent, and became an expert on the subject.
Her interest was more widespread than just 18th- and 19th-century glass as she researched meticulously all aspects of its making in Ireland, from its beginning in the late 16th century until the present day.
Always happy to put on her rubber boots and go out with a trowel to scrabble in mounds of soil, her investigations led her to find evidence of glass-making in various counties.
It was she who discovered the previously unrecorded 17th-century upstanding glass furnace, that still exists at Shinrone in Co Offaly, which makes it unique in Ireland and Britain.
In one of her articles, she describes how the first flint glass in the country was manufactured by a Capt Philip Roche in 1690s. He had some setbacks with the building of his Dublin glass-house, on the corner of St Mary's Lane and the present Halston Street, as it collapsed twice, once falling on top of him. Luckily the tip of his cane appeared through the rubble so that he was found and rescued.
Mary Boydell lectured and wrote for many journals on various aspects of glass and had the gift of transmitting her enthusiasm to others with whom she generously shared her expertise, allowing them to consult her extensive library and to see her glass collection.
She and her husband, the eminent composer and professor of music at Trinity College Brian Boydell, welcomed many a student of glass to their home in Baily in Howth. There, they had the added attraction of the enchanting garden which they had both created. In the 1970s, she curated the special exhibition of Irish glass at the Rosc exhibition.
She also edited Dudley Westropp's standard work, Irish Glass to which she added a chapter on Pugh, the Dublin glass-makers of the late 19th century.
She was particularly interested in Franz Tieze, the Bohemian engraver who worked for them.
She was a co-founder of the Glass Society of Ireland. In recognition of her work on Irish glass, Trinity College awarded her an honorary degree.
When she moved from Howth, she donated her collection of historic Irish glass, her library and archive to the National Museum and the National Library respectively.
Mary Boydell was born in Trim where her father, Teddy Jones, was a bank manager. Soon after her birth, he was posted to Skibbereen and they later moved to Drogheda. In the 1940s she trained as a nurse and was an assistant matron at Castle Park School.
About this time, she took singing lessons with Brian Boydell.
They were married in 1944 and 14 years later, Brian founded the Dowland Consort of which she was a member. She sang as a soprano soloist at concerts in Dublin and included the songs which he had written specially for her. The consort specialised in renaissance music and she discovered her passion for the music of Monteverdi.
She worked as a consultant for Sotheby's in Ireland for many years. Although her forte was glass, she was also very knowledgable about antiques.
She also served as a member of the Irish Museums Trust as well as being a council member of the Old Dublin Society.
After her husband's death in 2000, she developed her interest in studio glass, making a remarkable collection of contemporary glass art.
Always keen to support craft workers and artists, she was instrumental in the founding of the Contemporary Makers wing of the Glass Society of Ireland.
It is an appropriate tribute that a comprehensive book on the history of Irish glass-making, to be published later this year by Irish Academic Press, is dedicated to Mary Boydell.
She is survived by her sons, Prof Barra Boydell of the department of music at NUI Maynooth, and Cormac Boydell, a ceramic artist; a third son, Marnac, predeceased her.
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Mary Boydell: born April 20th, 1921; died May 18th, 2010.