Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

 

     Among many other Irish grievances which have at times called for Parliamentary interference there is one which no longer exists. In former days Ireland was afflicted with a plague of wolves, which not only committed depredations on the cattle in the country, but would sometimes on winter nights enter villages and the suburbs of towns. In 1662 Sir John Posonbody, in the Irish House of Commons, reported the great increase of wolves, and that the same was a “grievance.” The House made a law for the taking and killing of them. The wolves, however, grew in numbers and boldness, and even at the beginning of the last century continued to be a great nuisance. They are now extinct, and so is the breed of large Irish wolf-dogs kept to destroy them.