It is absolutely impossible to become a sound judge of Irish glass
without years of experience, and, above all, without the constant
actual handling of pieces of all dates and descriptions, consequently
the genuine Irish dealer who has lived amongst it all his life has a
very great pull with regard to actual knowledge.
So many specimens were made to order, and were therefore of special
shape and cutting, that it is very difficult for the uninitiated to
recognise a piece as being of any certain factory or period, and he is
naturally mystified when he tries to classify such pieces into more
or less well-known categories. For instance, an ancestor of mine had
in his possession an early deep coloured bowl, cover, and stand of
exceptional quality, made about 1750. His son, in 1790, had it cut in
"flat diamonds" (a cutting then much in vogue), the result being a
specimen of early dark "wavy" glass, adorned with the beautiful cutting
of forty years later, and this is only _one_ instance of many which
could be quoted.