IrishWade pottery began back in 1946 with Wade Ulster, then in January of1950 it was integrated as a subsidiary of George Wade & Son Ltd tohelp them in their production of die pressed insulators. For threeyears the intertwined potteries continued to help rebuild Britain afterthe damage caused by the Second World War.

By1953 the potteries were no longer needed to produce such high amountsof industrial ceramics so they both began to look around for otherareas of production to keep them in business, and it is here at thistime that we find the first piece’s of Irish Wade pottery pieces asWade Ulster enters into the field of ornamental giftware.

Theceramic pieces were given their own backstamps to differentiate thepieces from those made in Wade England. The first known backstamp wasan ink stamp of an owl in front of a hand and was used from 1950 ontheir ceramic industrial goods.

From around1953 Wade used backstamps with the inscription “Irish Porcelain Made inIreland” with a picture of the shamrock leaf in the centre. Thesebackstamps were of a variety of types including transfer prints,embossed and impressed.

The Irish Wade potteryhad a style of its own and produced some very distinctive ceramicpieces which were very different from the pieces being made in theEnglish Wade potteries and were fast becoming known for their tankardsand steins which were decorated in beautiful speckled blues, greens andgreys.

Probably one of the most famous typesof Wade figurines to come from the Wade Ulster pottery is the pixies,leprechauns and lucky fairy folk. From 1956 to 1986 the Irish Wadepottery made many different pieces using baby pixies and largeleprechauns. Alongside this the little folk theme continued with otherissues: • Thelucky fairy folk series was also issued in 1956 and consisted of threepixie type figurines sitting on either a rabbit, or a pig or an acorn! • Aseries of three more figures were also produced in 1956 in the luckyleprechaun’s series. The first figure was a cobbler, the second holds acrock-o-gold and the third is a tailor. Two other issues of thesefigures has been made the second was a new version with flesh colouredfaces in the 1960’s (originals had brown faces) and the third issue of1971 where the figurines had a black ink stamp.

Wade Ulster also produced a Shamrock pottery series in 1956, this was a small series consisting of: • An Irish comical pig – The backs of some of these pigs were painted in black special places of interest. • Apink elephant – Again on the backs of these comical elephants you willfind slogans indicating that you had had too much to drink or places ofinterest. Some elephants were produced blank. • Shamrock cottage – These models were sold in different versions of the years with and without place names. • Pixie dish • Donkey and cart posy bowl.

In November of 1966 Wade Ulster changed its name to Wade (Ireland) Ltd.

• In1971 the Irish Wade pottery produced their Mourne range; a limitedcollection of fifteen pieces of household ware with a truly unusualshape and smooth lines. The pieces are decorated in black with a singleburnt orange flower motif and leaf imprinting. • Justlike the English Wade the Irish Wade pottery has its own propertyseries issued in 1984-1987. the Bally-Whim Irish village was similar tothe Whimsey-on-Why English house collection and consisted of eightIrish village houses. • Whimtrays– little butter type dishes with the added decoration of a first or anEnglish whimsy were made by the Irish Wade pottery in 1985. TheWhimtrays in this collection were the husky, king penguin, polar bearcub, a duck, a fawn and lastly the trout.

Itis quite well known that the Irish wade pottery would help its EnglishWade friends out when a large order was due. When they did this theysometimes used the “Wade England” backstamps on models. This means thatsome wade models backstamped “Wade England” actually have Irish origins.