Belleek Pottery Ltd is a porcelain company that began trading in August 1884 as the Belleek Pottery Works Company Ltd in Belleek, County Fermanagh, in what was to become Northern Ireland.Pottery in the region began around 1849, after John Caldwell Bloomfield inherited his father’s estate.[ Seeking to provide employment for his tenants, who had been affected by the Irish potato famine and, being an amateur mineralogist, he ordered a geological survey of his land. On finding that the area was rich in minerals, Bloomfield went into partnership with London architect Robert Williams Armstrong and Dublin merchant David McBirney. In setting up a pottery business, Bloomfield managed to get a railway line built to Belleek so that coal could be delivered with which to fire kilns.Building started on the pottery in 1858. Initially Belleek Ireland Shamrock Porcelain 8” Island Vase Green 6th Mark 1965 – 1980
Originally introduced in 1920, the Island Vase shape was originally developed with blank panels that could be hand decorated, often with flowers and other animal motifs. First starting in the 1920s, its middle panels were decorated with bunches of Shamrocks. This form of decoration became best love and used and in production until the mid 1990s.