By Derek Fanningg
THE ANCESTOR OF EVERY HUNTING DOG
I
recently came across an 18th Century Irish poem which features a section about a wolf hunt. The poem is called “McDermott, or the Irish fortune hunter” and was written in 1719. The poem's images and vocabulary would be perfectly in keeping if the poet had been writing about a fox hunt. It's the same series of events as a fox hunt except the quarry, of course, is considerably more dangerous: “It happen'd on a day with horn and hounds, A baron gallop'd through MacDermot's grounds, Well hors'd, pursuing o'er the dusty plain A wolf that sought the neighbouring woods to gain: Mac hears th'alarm, and runs before the peer, Outstrips the huntsman, dogs, and panting steeds, And, struck by him, the falling savage bleeds." It's estimated that there were on average about 500 to 1000 wolves in Ireland during the 16th and 17th Centuries. During the tumultuous years of the 1640s their numbers rose significantly. Cromwell said they were a
menace and he ordered that significant sums of money be paid to wolf hunters. The aim was to exterminate them completely from the landscape. For the next century or so they were hunted indiscriminately. It's said the last wolf was shot and killed in Leitrim or Mount Leinster in 1786 (there are a number of other contenders for the location). It's poignant to think of the last creature of its race meeting its end; alone, despised and misunderstood. Prior to Cromwell's arrival, the Irish had a more tolerant attitude to wolves. Sure, they were hunted but not with the same grim, indiscriminate determination as would come later. The average person's attitude was more accepting. Flocks were protected as best as they could, and wolf attacks on humans were very rare. I remember trekking in Transylvania a few years ago. We trekked for three days in the mountains hoping to catch a sighting of wolves but with no luck. Our guide showed us wolf droppings. "They are near," he said, and pointed to the steep, wooded slopes. "They are probably watching us now. They are more wary of us than we are of them." Wolves are beautiful and fascinating.
Their beauty has captivated me for years. Often when I look at my petdogs, or when I look at a pack of beagles chasing a hare, or a pack of foxhounds pursuing foxes or mink, I think to myself that these dogs are descended from the grey wolf. Every single one of them. At some stage in the far distant past grey wolves came in from the cold, lay down beside our fires and became a part of the human story. Nowadays our landscape in Ireland is well-controlled, tamed and manicured. It's hard to imagine that it was once wilderness and vast forest inhabited by bear, wild cat, boar and wolf. Among the earliest sites of human habitation in Ireland is Mount Sandel in County Derry and a place near where I live Lough Boora in County Offaly. In Boora a group of people, about 9,000 years ago, set up an encampment on the shores of a large lake. In some ways the landscape around them was a bit like paradise. There was abundant game to be hunted in the forests and there was abundant fish in the lake. As they lay on their beds in their shelters at night and listened to the world outside, one of the sounds which they most probably heard was the howling of wolves, a sound
Irish Country Sports and Country Life Winter 2021
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