Wolves used to roam the Irish countryside in great number and frequency.  And these wolves were doing this in Ireland for a seriously long time, like I’m talking tens of thousands of years. Yet every last one was exterminated from the island by the late 18th century.  Nowadays, there are laws to keep species alive but only a few hundred years ago, there was actually a vigilant and lawful effort to rid Ireland of its wolves. There’s a new book by Kieran Hickey of NUI Galway (he’s the go-to man for this topic) explaining how the extermination of the Irish wolf went down.

Hickey spent ten years researching the Irish wolf and explains their extermination occurred primarily as a result of legislation put into place by Oliver Cromwell, the English political and military leader. So, why would Cromwell do this? At this time in history (1600s), large amounts of the Irish countryside were given to English settlers as a part of an English campaign to conquer Ireland. The wolves’ perfect Irish habitat – vast amounts of land and forest with few predators – depleted because of the presence of humans and deforestation to make room for all the settlers. As their wolf encounters became problematic (they actually referred to Ireland as “Wolf-land”), it was decided that all of the wolves should be killed. There were actually bounties in place (such as £6 per female wolf, £5 per male, £2 per juvenile and 10 Shillings per cub) and hunters even traveled to Ireland from abroad to make money. Additionally, there were laws in place that required all landowners to kill wolves (if the landowner did not follow the law then they would be fined heavily).

By 1786, the last wolf in Ireland had been exterminated and the wolves presence in Ireland was put to an end. A startling fact is that there is radio carbon dating evidence that puts wolves in Ireland 34,000 years BC and within a short span of only 150 years they were completely phased out. Recently there has been discussion about reintroducing the wolf to Ireland (this was done so in Scotland) but disappointingly there hasn’t been any substantial development. No doubt reintroducing an animal to its native habitat can be difficult but it’s clear the wolf has a rightful place in Ireland.

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