The sound of smashing china and tinkling glass is all part of the fun at new year sales. Now it sounds as though the tableware industry itself is going to pieces. Crystal and fine china maker Waterford Wedgwood, a pet investment of Irish entrepreneur and non-executive chairman Sir Tony O’Reilly, is the latest household name to be put into administration, joining Royal Worcester & Spode. Banks pulled the plug after the Irish group failed to raise fresh capital.

The cracks have been apparent since Waterford, the Irish crystal maker, merged with Wedgwood in 1986. Changing tastes, working capital constraints and failure to tame high production costs in Ireland and the UK while most sales were to the US, have been recurring concerns. Sir Tony first bailed out the Irish icon in the early 1990s. He and brother-in-law Peter Goulandris poured in more than €400m, including €60m last year in spite of an unsuccessful €154m rights issue, to cut net debt of over €449m. Wearied by four rights issues since 2003, ordinary shareholders understandably ran out of patience.