His unsuccessful ventures included a brewery in Dublin, near Islandbridge, the tale of its decline is intertwined with that of his greatest success, his musical glasses.
When bailiffs came to arrest Poekrich for his debts, he entranced them with an impromptu performance on his "Angelic organ'; his subsequent pardon is given as the earliest example of a belief in the psychological effect of the instrument, later adopted by Mesmer.
Anticipating the problems of immortality that might result, Pockrich proposed an act decreeing that "anyone attaining the age of 999 years shall be deemed ... dead in law".
[5] Pockrich eventually found success with his performances of his musical glasses and is credited with their invention around 1741; he first appeared with it in public at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, 3 May 1743.
His early method of playing, using wooden sticks, is comparable to a similar instrument, the "glassspiel" or "verrillon", designed a few years earlier on known principles.
[5] The instrument was adopted by Gluck, who presented it on 23 April 1746 as "a concerto on 26 drinking-glasses tuned with spring water", and performances were popular for half a century.
[12] Pilkington gave a description of Pockrich constructing an instrument, simulating a dulcimer, during a meeting at his home; by hammering pins and wire on the table, the visitor laid his head to hear his request for Black Joke.
O'Donoghue notes the autobiographical Memoirs of John Carteret Pilkington and also draws on the miscellaneous collection Essays, Poetical, Moral, &c. (1769) by Thomas Newburgh (c.1695–1779),[15][16] attributing the relevant material to his father Brockhill Newburgh writing in 1743, and the early or contemporary sources in Thomas Campbell's Philosophical Survey; Conran's National Music of Ireland; the Gentleman's Magazine, 1759; and his own reference work, Poets of Ireland.
Campbell in a notice in A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland (1776), in asserting Poekrich's eminence in music, stated that performances of his instrument, while lacking great force, produced the sweetest of tones.
[19] Brockhill Newburgh of County Cavan was related to Pockrich, apparently making him the subject of a mocking poem, "The Projector", a first attempt at what would have been a 24 volume work entitled "The Pockreiad".
The notes to this unfinished work detail the author's ridicule of his subject's notions, though he gives exception to his highly regarded musical glasses; this became a key source of information on the life of Richard Pockrich.
Let tempests swell the surge, no more his boat, Secure from wreck, shall on the billows float; No more, ye sons of Nappy, shall his beer Or nut-brown ale your dropping spirits cheer, To his own castles, built sublime in air, Quitting his geese and bogs and glassy care, With blood infused, and, like a meteor bright,