The Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus) was an integral part of the Irish countryside and culture, but is now extinct. The last wild wolf in Ireland is said to have been killed in 1786, 300 years after they were believed to have been wiped out in England and 100 years after their disappearance from Scotland.
Folklore and mythology
Wolves feature prominently in Irish mythology. Airitech was a mysterious creature whose three daughters were werewolf-like creatures, eventually killed by Cas Corach. The Irish words for wolf are Mac Tíre ("son of the land"), Faoil (from Proto-Indo-European *waylos, "howler") and Cú Allaidh ("wild hound"), and association with human transformation linger. Whilst some consider this to be imported, there are many references in Irish mythology to lycanthropes and changing to other animal forms. The last known wolf in Ireland was killed near Mount Leinster in 1786. The Morrígan was said to take on the form of a red-furred wolf, particularly in her battle with the hero Cú Chulainn. Mac Cecht killed a wolf feeding on a still-living woman on a battlefield. Cormac mac Airt was said to have been raised by wolves, and that he could understand their speech. Four wolves would accompany him in his rebellion against Lugaid mac Con, and he would later be accompanied by them until the end of his life. The Annals of the Four Masters claims that, in 690, "It rained a shower of blood in Leinster this year. Butter was there also turned into lumps of gore and blood, so that it was manifest to all in general. The wolf was heard speaking with human voice, which was horrific to all." One tale describes how in 1182, a priest travelling from Ulster into Meath encountered a talking wolf, which revealed itself to be a man of Ossory, whose ancestors had been cursed to turn into wolves every seven years and return to their human form after another seven years had passed. The wolf explained that his wife, who was also under the curse, was dying, and he pleaded with the priest to give her the viaticum. The priest complied, and was later put on the right road to Meath by the grateful wolf.
History
In prehistory The Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus) is a canine of the order Carnivora, a subspecies of the grey wolf (Canis lupus), and an apex predator largely feeding on ungulates. The earliest radiocarbon date for Irish wolf remains come from excavated cave sites in Castlepook Cave, north of Doneraile, County Cork, and dates back to 34,000 BC. Wolf bones discovered in a number of other cave sites, particularly in the counties of Cork, Waterford and Clare indicate the presence of wolves throughout the Midlandian ice age which probably reached its peak between 20,000 BC and 18,000 BC. By about 14,000 BC, Ireland became separated from Great Britain, which, itself, still formed part of mainland Europe, to become an island. Wolves were one of just a few species of land animal in Ireland that survived through the Nahanagan Stadial, a cold period that occurred between 10,800 BC and 9500 BC. Wolves were a major part of Ireland's postglacial fauna, as evidenced by their prominence in ancient Irish myths and legends, in a number of place names (both Irish and English), in archaeological sites, along with a considerable number of historical references.
Historical records
According to the Annals of Loch Cé, the poet Cúán úa Lothcháin (died 1024) was "slain by the men of Tethfa. God performed a ‘poet's miracle,' manifestly, on the party that killed him, for they died an evil death, and their bodies were not buried until wolves and birds preyed upon them." One of the earliest historic references to wolves attacking people in Ireland occurs in the Annals of Tigernach under the year 1137: "The Blind one of ... that is, Giolla Muire, was killed by wolves." Under the year 1420 in the Annála Connacht is the statement "Wolves killed many people this year." In 1571, as a result of its comprehensive destruction by James Mac Maurice and "the warlike troops of the Clann-Sweeny and Clann-Sheehy", Kilmallock "became the receptacle and abode of wolves" In 1573, the aftermath of the battle of Bel-an-Chip was described—"Noisy were the ravens and carrion-crows, and other ravenous birds of the air, and the wolves of the forest, over the bodies of the nobles slain in the battle on that day." In 1581 William Odhar O Carroll was put "unsparingly to the sword, and detested (the thought of) shewing him quarter or mercy. They slew him, and left his body under the talons of ravens and the claws of wolves." In the aftermath of the Desmond rebellion, the body of a Dr. Saunders was found in Desmond in early 1583 "who perished miserably, having fallen a victim to famine and the effects of exposure to the weather, and whose body was discovered partially devoured by wolves" In the aftermath of the wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Francisco de Cuellar turned to check upon a companion only to find him dead. "There he lay on the ground with more than six hundred other dead bodies which the sea cast up, and the crows and wolves devoured them, without there being any one to bury them." The port books of Bristol record between a yearly average of between 100 and 300 wolfskins exported from Ireland throughout the 1500s and a total of 961 skins in a single year. Pilib Ó Súilleabháin Béirre (c. 1590 – c. 1660), writing of Ireland and particularly Munster after the end of the Nine Years' War, described the aftermath: "THUS the war was finished. Ireland was almost entirely laid waste and destroyed, and terrible want and famine oppressed all, so that many were forced to eat dogs and whelps: many not having even these, died. And not only men but even beasts were hungry. The wolves, coming out of the woods and mountains, attacked and tore to pieces, men weak from want. The dogs rooted from the graves rotten carcases partly decomposed. And so there was nought but abundance of misery ..." Throughout most of the first half of the 17th century, Ireland had a substantial wolf population of not less than 400 and maybe as high as 1,000 wolves at any one time. One of the nicknames used for Ireland at this time was “wolf-land”.
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