The last wolf in Ireland? Declan Rice, writes from the hamlet of Grange on the Tipperary-Kilkenny border in the Slieveardagh Hills region, to ask for information. The question arose obliquely out of a discussion about the repairing and opening up of an old tower dedicated to the Duke of Wellington. At the meeting "a usually reliable source" mentioned that he had once read in an old book that the adjoining townland of Renaghmore had been the home of the last wolf in Ireland. "Renaghmore is part of a wild, bleak plateau rising in a couple of places to over a thousand feet," our correspondent writes. "Do you have any information?"
Mark Holmes of the Natural History Museum in Dublin says this topic has been much debated and disputed. He advised consulting Fairley's An Irish Beast Book, where a fine anthology of such stories is to be found. The wolf seems to have persisted until near the end of the 18th century. There are, says Fairley, many "last Irish wolves" and "Clearly detective work is a couple of hundred years too late." A stone presented to the Royal Irish Academy in 1841 was believed to represent the killing of a wolf by a dog. It came from Ardnaglass Castle in County Sligo. But the stone, Fairley reckons, dates from very much earlier than the 17th century.
Then he goes on to "the `last wolf' of second greatest antiquity" in County Antrim, near Belfast. A schoolmaster J. Compton brought out a small volume A Compendous System of Chronology. Against the year 1692 is written: "The last wolf seen in Ireland is killed by Irish wolf-dogs on the hill of Aughnabrack, near Belfast by Clotworthy Upton of Castle-Upton, Templepatrick." Speared, it is said. Breach is Irish for wolf and Aughnabrack is commonly called Wolf Hill by the people of Belfast, it is said. (Is there not a Wolfhill near Leginiel, also). Fairley gives us, too, a killing at Nappan, near Glenarm, County Antrim in 1712. William Thompson, the naturalist, listed Glenarm as "one of the three places in Ireland commemorated with this honour". Even today, Fairley tells us, "Nappan is one of the wildest and least frequented places in the country".
Fairley does the wolf proud with many, many more stories. Nearest to our friend's query may be the death of a wolf in the Knockmealdowns between Tipperary and Waterford about 1770. Then Myshall, close to Ballydarton, County Carlow. In the Slieve Blooms there is a summit known as the Wolftrap. Down, Wicklow, Connemara, Mayo - Fairley gives more. Take your pick.