Brian Havel is pleased to see Waterford Crystal name still flying high on the Mall.
beautiful new Saint Patrick’s
Gate lecture theatre, Professor
Dr Brian F Havel, a proud
Waterford native gave an
illuminating talk on Waterford
Crystal and the role of
his father, the late Miroslav
Patrick Havel, in the settingup
of the company.
The lecture was hosted by
the Waterford Archaeological
and Historical Society in what
was the final lecture in the
Society’s spring series.
Professor Havel endorsed
the new owners of Waterford
Wedgwood Royal Doulton
(WWRD), the Fiskars Group,
adding that the new Waterford
operation has a good prospect
of developing further in the
years to come.
Certainly, his father never
expected Waterford Crystal
to get so big that it employed
3,400 staff at its peak.
Miroslav Havel was
involved in turning a handcrafted
product into mass
craft production, making it
the largest industrial employer
in Ireland back in the 60s and
70s.
Professor Havel argued that
Waterford Crystal led the way
to the economic transformation
that began in Ireland in
the post-war era.
The rise of Communism
in Eastern Europe, after the
Soviet occupation, caused
Czechs and other Eastern
Europeans, along with Italians
and Germans, to come to
Ireland to lend their glassmaking
skills to the new Waterford
company.
Professor Havel said that
his father envisaged a small
boutique factory with perhaps
200 employees make exquisite
specialty products.
But the expansion of the
company’s sales to the United
States, led by marketing director
Con Dooley, created a giant
company that made everything
from thimble-sized liqueur
glasses to massive stateroom
chandeliers.
In 1951, the company was
sold into Irish hands. The
McGrath family, owners of the
Irish glass bottle Company,
provided the finance that
enabled the company to build
a new factory in Johnstown
that was able to produce
high-quality polished heavy
crystal instead of the cheaper
soda-based crystal of the early
years.
Now the new House of
Waterford Crystal facility on
The Mall is creating prestige
lines, and Professor Havel
welcomed the fact that some
of the original tradition has
been preserved.
Professor Havel’s talk
focused also on his father’s
personal journey from a
remote village in Bohemia
in what was then northern
Czechoslovakia, to Waterford
City in 1947.
In 2005, Professor Havel
published his father’s story in
the book, ‘Maestro of Crystal’
and his lecture drew from
many of the reminiscences in
the book.
Miroslav Havel came to
work for another Czech emigrant,
Charles Bacik, who
owned several glass factories
in Bohemia but who had fled
the Communists through Switzerland
and came to Ireland
where he had business connections
in the glass and jewellery
businesses.
Havel was the first employee
of the new factory, which
didn’t actually exist when he
arrived in Waterford in 1947.
After the Communist takeover
of Czechoslovakia in 1948,
Havel’s passport was confiscated
and he was branded a
traitor in his home country.
He was unable to return for 25
years (1972) after former Taoiseach
Sean Lemass arranged
for him to get an Irish passport.
After 1951, the new
company quickly stepped
up production and Miroslav
Havel developed hugely
successful modern designs,
including the world-famous
Lismore suite.
The designs were based to
some extent on the old 18th
century designs of the original
Waterford Glass, but Havel
created a new design ethos
that reflected the very different
tastes of the 20th century.
Havel had been trained
extensively in every kind of
glassmaking skill in Prague.
He was born only 60 miles
from the birthplace of Pope
John Paul II in Poland and
although he lived in Ireland
for 61 years, he had a similar
English accent as the Pope.
This was because of the
hearing loss he suffered in a
mine explosion that occurred
during the time when the Nazi
occupiers forced him, along
with other Czechoslovak students,
to work in the coalmines
during the war.
Havel became a Catholic
in order to marry his wife,
Betty. On the instructions of
the local bishop, he took the
name Patrick as his confirmation
name.
The bishop could not
pronounce his preferred
choice, the Czechoslovak
name “Bohomil,” which
means “child of God,” and
so told Havel to take Patrick
instead.
His mother was allowed by
the Communist government
to visit him in Ireland in 1962,
the first time he was able to see
her or speak to her in 15 years.
This visit outside the Iron
Curtain was so unusual that
RTE sent a camera crew to
Waterford to cover her visit to
her Irish family.
Her husband, Professor
Havel’s grandfather, later
visited separately in 1964.
The Communists would never
give permission for both
spouses to exit the country at
the same time, out of fear that
they might defect.
Czechoslovakia, in those
days, was indeed a faraway
country, yet today it is easily
accessible in just a few hours
from Dublin Airport.
Professor Havel mentioned
the many celebrities who
flocked to his father’s studio
at Waterford Glass in its
heyday.
The Kennedy family, many
US Senators, Bing Crosby,
and Fred Astaire, were all
regular visitors. In 1986,
Havel presented a crystal
sculpture of the Statute of
Liberty to President Ronald
Reagan at the White house.
He also related how Bishop
Michael Russell surprised his
fellow Irish bishops by presenting
a special Havel sculpture,
in the shape of a bishop’s
mitre, to Pope Paul VI on the
occasion of the canonization
of Oliver Plunkett.
Professor Havel concluded
his wide-ranging talk by
noting how Waterford Glass
is now part of Ireland’s industrial
and cultural heritage.
He speculated that a
State loan guarantee to the
company in 2008 would have
been justified under international
United Nations treaties
on the protection of cultural
heritage , and regretted the
collapse and bankruptcy of
the company that occurred
in early 2009. He noted that
the Waterford tradition comprised
an accumulated 25,000
years of glassmaking expertise
by thousands of employees
during the 40 years of
his father’s career with the
company.
He said that the city of
Waterford “got lucky” twice
in having glass factories set up
here under the Penroses in the
18th Century, who came here
to escape British taxes, and
again when Bacik and Havel
came to the city as Eastern
European glassmaking fell
victim to the Communist
takeover in the mid-1940s.
There were a number of
questions from the floor.
David Flynn, the director of
the venue, raised the point
that Miroslav Havel should
be honoured by the city and
commemorated perhaps by
a plaque or by some other
public recognition.
The tradition of handcrafted
glassmaking has
changed, and robots can now
do a fair imitation of the classical
Waterford glass cutting,
but Professor Havel said that
other luxury companies like
Gucci and Tiffany’s had stuck
to their core design skills even
while serving a mass market.
His father was a multitalented
man, whose array of
skills even included designing
the packaging for the product
as well as the famous seahorse
trademark.
He was the beneficiary of
a thousand-year heritage of
Bohemian glassmaking and
his work at Waterford ended
up in the Kennedy Centre in
Washington and in the nave
of Westminster Abbey (as we
covered last year).
His legacy includes brilliant
chandeliers, sports trophies,
and a treasury of one-off glass
sculptures made from solid
blocks of crystal.
Summing up, Professor
Havel quoted Jim Nolan’s
acclaimed radio documentary,
‘The Glass,’ in which Jim
said that it was a great day for
Waterford when Miroslav
Havel came over the bridge
and helped set up the glass
factory.
The company that grew in
Waterford ended up as the
world’s largest manufacturer
of high-quality heavy lead
crystal and one of the two
most famous brand names in
Irish industrial history (the
other being Guinness).
Professor Havel welcomed
the fact that the company continues,
even as a smaller operation,
and that the pension
issue has now finally been
resolved.
In hindsight, in fact, he
seemed to suggest that boutique
crystal may have been
a better approach than heavy
discounting and using the
trademark on everything from
bed linens to fountain pens.
Brian’s latest talk in Waterford,
about the great tradition
his father did so much to
revive, was well worth listening
to and it was a pleasure to
be in attendance.
