Collins New Naturalist Library

Wolves

Like the red deer, the wolf is an ancient Irish mammal, and one of the several species that became extinct in Ireland in historic times. It was predominant in Irish woods until the end of the seventeenth century, but man, under instruction from the English authorities, soon got the better of it. What organised hunting could not do, wood clearances perfected, and the bulk of the furry marauders was quickly extinguished. A few straggling remnants survived through the eighteenth century and it would appear that the last of the wolves was killed in Co. Carlow in 1786.31

Wolves were present in Ireland from prehistoric times, as shown by remains found in caves in Waterford, Sligo and Cork.35 In those Arcadian days the hungry lupines did not have to cover kilometres to find prey, as the countryside was teeming with giant deer and reindeer. Later, when the giant deer became extinct and man appeared, the beginning of farming meant a renewed diet of cattle and sheep. Fortified settlements such as raths or ring forts dating between 500 BC and AD 1000 are evidence of the necessity to protect domestic animals from thieves and wolves during the night.

From the early days of colonisation, the English authorities were concerned that if Ireland were to be fully civilised, the wolves had to be eradicated. The species had disappeared from England and Wales around 1500 and Scotland was in the process of being rid of it (the last Scottish wolf died in 1740). There is no doubt, however, that, prior to English rule, it had been a sport of the Irish chieftains to hunt the wolf – known as fael or bréach and sometimes occurring under the name ‘son of the country’ (mac-tire).36 For that purpose they were assisted by dogs of gigantic proportion, great swiftness and indomitable courage, variously called ‘Wolf-dogs’ or ‘Wolf-hounds’ and not to be confused with greyhounds – although historical research is vague on the origin of the wolfhound as a specific breed and confusion is often noticeable.

Wolf from the Book of Kells (c.800 AD). (The Board of Trinity College, Dublin).

The habit was to kill the wolves by trailing a dead horse through the woods before dropping it in a clearing. When the wolves came to feed at night, the hounds were let slip and quickly dealt with the famished guests. As farming developed and more of the country was put under pasture, the wolf became an increasing nuisance and hunting was promoted through various edicts and bills. In a ‘Book of Information’ compiled in 1584 it was recommended that ‘some order might be had, as when the lease is granted to put in some clause that the tenant endeavour himself to spoil and kill Wolves with traps, snares, or such devices as he may devise’.37 No doubt, the species in the sixteenth century was still very widespread and numerous. An entry in the diary of William Russell, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, in 1596 indicates that there were wolves in the woods just outside Dublin. Further action was encouraged under James I and in 1611 it was decided that an ‘Act for killing Wolves and other vermin’ was necessary – though it was never passed. The text of the proposed Bill cautioned the Lord Deputy or Principal Governor to call off the hunt if they thought that the hunters (requisitioned peasants mostly) were using it as a ploy to get armed – a clear case of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

In a subsequent attempt to civilise Ireland, Cromwell brought out a Bill in 1653 spelling out the necessity to hunt and destroy the plunderers he called ‘doggie wolves’. Some organisation was required – ‘daies and tymes for hunting the Wolfe’ had to be appointed – and money was to be paid on presentation of the heads of male, female or infant wolves, a different rate applying to each specimen. Settlers and natives therefore actively engaged in a renewed bout of destruction, which in 1683 enabled an observer to say about Co. Leitrim: ‘The wolves, which were very numerous, are now very scarce…’. By the close of the seventeenth century the battle was nearly won and Ireland’s reputation as ‘Wolf-land’ could no longer be literally sustained. But the saga of the ‘last’ wolf continued through the eighteenth century with some counties being entirely cleared while in others, like Kerry, more hunting was required. But as the woods dwindled the wolf was left with straggly pockets of trees, which made it even more vulnerable. Eventually silence fell: there was no more ‘panting, lolling, vapouring’38 outside farmyards and no more howling.

European frogs and natterjack toads

The history of the European frog in Ireland has perplexed biologists for several centuries. Was it introduced in 1699, or does its lineage stretch back into the mists of time, to the postglacial period at least 10,000 years ago? The story begins with early categoric statements regarding the frog’s absence. Donatus, the ninth century Irish monk, appears to have been the first to speak:39

Nulla venena nocent, nec serpens serpit in herba

Nec conquesta canit garrula rana lacu.

No poison there infects, no scaly snake,

Creeps through the grass; nor croaking frog annoys the lake.

Cambrensis echoed these sentiments in Topographia Hiberniae, written in the 1180s:43 ‘Of all kinds of reptiles, only those that are not harmful are found in Ireland. It has no poisonous reptiles. It has no serpents or snakes, toads or frogs, tortoises or scorpions.’ But Cambrensis contradicts himself a few pages later when he speaks of the discovery of at least one European frog, found near Waterford: ‘Nevertheless in our days a frog was found near Waterford in some grassy land, and was brought to Robert Poer…’. It was seen by many people including Duvenaldus (Domhnall), King of Ossory, ‘who happened to be there at the time, with a great shaking of his head and great sorrow in his heart at last said (and he was a man of great wisdom among his people and loyal to them): “that reptile brings very bad news to Ireland”.’ So what are we to make of this? What is the real truth about the frog’s pedigree in Ireland?

Noxious animals and their evil associations were an obsession of early Christian commentators who placed the frog in the same category as toads, snakes and lizards because of a superficial similarity. Thus when St Patrick, in one generous swing of the crozier, drove all the pernicious creatures away, the frog left the country – or so Christian mythology claims. Another story concerns a certain Dr Gwithers, Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, labelled ‘frog introducer to Ireland’ who is supposed to have performed his sly deed in 1699.40 One snag is that there is no Dr Gwithers recorded on the books of Trinity College, although there was a Dr Gwithers who was one of William Molyneux’s network of correspondents gathering information for the English Atlas, an ambitious and ill-fated project launched by the London bookseller Moses Pitt in 1682 (see here). Dr Gwithers, in his notes supplied to Molyneux, now lodged in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, categorically states that the frog was absent from Ireland. But his zoological credentials were seriously compromised when he noted that both the stag and otter were also absent which, of course, was not true.41

Another chapter in the mystery of the frog’s antiquity was unravelled some 355 m up on the side of Keishcorran Hill as the present century dawned. Here, at one of the southern outposts of the limestone region in Sligo and Leitrim, at about 90 m above the base of the hill, on the southwestern side, is a line of low cliffs some 15–30 m high punctured by a series of cave entrances. The caves provided refuge and shelter to many animals during the late glacial period some 12,000 years ago. Bones of brown bear, red deer and wolf from this period have been found buried in the earthen floors under more recent material. Other animals came as prey brought by others. During the excavation of one of these caves, the Plunkett Cave, in 1901, a large number of frog bones were found in the upper stratum of soil extending to a depth of some 30 cm on the cave floor. No doubt this stratum was of recent origin, but below were much older layers of soil that revealed more frog bones, associated with Arctic lemmings. Lemmings were present in the Irish landscape some 10,000 years ago as evidenced by the radiocarbon dating of bones found in the Edenvale Cave, Co. Cork, but probably not much longer after that as the rise in temperatures made habitats unsuitable for them. In other words, if frogs were contemporary with the lemmings they had to date back about 10,000 years.

Some of the fossilised frog bones recovered from Plunkett Cave lay in the clay stratum nearly 2 m below the surface layers. Such depth ruled out any likelihood that frogs from more recent times had burrowed down through this overburden, or were deposited there by other animals digging up holes, or had been displaced by soil shifts caused by running water coursing through the cave systems. Moreover the bones were blackened and filled with clay showing that they had not arrived recently. The evidence was enough to convince Scharff that the frog was indeed a member of the ancient fauna of Ireland.24,42 But there are other opinions about the bones’ antiquity and the argument can only be settled with a radiocarbon date. That this task has not yet been undertaken is quite astonishing. As the European frog lives quite happily throughout Europe and within the Arctic Circle there is no reason why low temperatures in Ireland, at the end of the last glacial phase some 10,000 years ago, would have cramped their style or inhibited their spread throughout the country.

The natterjack toad’s history in Ireland is equally controversial without any definitive conclusion as to its antiquity. However, the somewhat slender evidence would point to it being a more recent arrival in the country than the frog.

View from Keishcorran Cave, Co. Sligo, where ancient frog bones were discovered.

Although Cambrensis observed that there were no toads in Ireland in the twelfth century43 there is no evidence in his texts that he went to west Kerry or had any informants from the region. There was no written reference to toads until 1836, when J.T. Mackay, botanist and author of Flora Hibernica, reported seeing them in 1805 in Callanafersy, a large district between the lower parts of the Rivers Laune and Maine adjacent to the eastern end of Castlemaine Harbour.44

How did these toads come to Ireland and why are they restricted to a relatively small sandy coastal area in west Kerry? Are they relicts of a once more widely spread population from a warmer and drier period? What do we make of Chute, writing from Blennerville on 31 March 1846, to Thompson, author of The Natural History of Ireland, ‘I believe the Natter-jack is indigenous to Kerry, though there is an old tradition that a ship at one time brought a lot of them and let them go at the head of Dingle Bay. This is born out by the fact that this is the only part of Kerry that they are met in: a district extending from the sandhills at Inch at Rosbegh at the head of the bay (where they are most numerous) to Carrignaferay, about ten miles in length in low marshy ground, and about the same number in breadth.’45 A century later, Praeger spoke contemptuously of this invasion hypothesis: ‘Could misdirected ingenuity go further than to suggest the importation or shipwreck of a cargo of toads on that lonely and harbourless coast!’20

Beebee says of natterjack toads in Ireland: ‘It seems much more likely that they are truly indigenous’ and he argues that they are part of the Lusitanian biota of the Iberian peninsula which is well known in southwest Ireland.46 However, the natterjack can hardly be considered Lusitanian with a European distribution stretching northwards to southern Sweden and into western Russia.

Their indigenous status is also supported by Praeger who wrote ‘There is no doubt that in spite of its extremely restricted range the animal is indigenous in Kerry – a relict species like some of the Kerry plants.’20 The only real evidence to support the indigenous status of the toad comes from the discovery of their bones from a megalithic cemetery at Carrowmore, Co. Sligo, during the 1970s.47 But the status of these bones is not clear. Were they contemporary with Neolithic man or did they arrive much later and end up buried in the soil at the same spot? Whatever the explanation, this would be the first evidence of the natterjack existing outside its very restricted Kerry range.

In fact, there are two flies in the indigenous ointment. First, the natterjack’s restricted distribution and its failure over its presumed long period of residence to colonise other available habitats and second, the lack of place names incorporating the Irish for ‘toad’.36 Both would argue against its native status. On the other hand, it would be wrong to dismiss completely the possibility of their arrival from a ship at the head of Dingle Bay for two reasons. First, local stories in Ireland are more than often grounded in fact and there is no reason to disbelieve this one. Smith, in his survey of Kerry published in 1756, wrote about Castlemaine Harbour in the mid-eighteenth century: ‘Deep enough for vessels of 50 tons or upwards to sail up to the bridge at high water where they may lie on soft oozy ground to discharge. Some vessels are unloaded here on the bankside which serves as a wharf. These are generally freighted with rock salt from England, and others are laden with iron ore which is carried on horses to the iron foundries.’48 Some toads could have been caught up in sand ballast, brought from European ports, and dumped on the shore at any point of the operations described above. The dumping of ballast on both sides of the Dingle Peninsula would explain the toad’s presence at Castlegregory and Castlemaine sites. Secondly, toads would have almost certainly been noticed and commented upon prior to their first recording in 1805 had they been present in the area over the centuries. Also, how could such an astute recorder as Smith overlook them in the 1750s? Finally, the non-indigenous hypothesis is strengthened by the absence in Ireland of the common toad whose European distribution is even more widespread than the natterjack’s, with populations extending much further north and east. It might therefore be suggested that the factors operating against the common toad’s spread westwards were also operating against the natterjack: both were probably prevented from hopping across land bridges connecting Britain and Ireland because those had already been drowned.

The hypothesis of the natterjack’s arrival by boat is also supported by some comments by Cambrensis. When discussing the fate of poisonous reptiles when they arrive in Ireland he states ‘I have heard merchants that ply their trade on the seas say that sometimes, when they unloaded their cargoes at Irish port, they found toads brought in by chance in the bottom of the holds. They threw them out still living on to the land…’.43 One way of throwing more light onto the natterjack’s status would be to investigate biochemical and genetic divergence between the Irish, British and European populations by electrophoresis or more sophisticated genetic techniques. Some historical research into the traffic of boats and the way their ballast and cargoes were handled in Dingle and Tralee Bays might also be helpful. The occurrence of jettisoned ballast on Irish shores is well known: it has been accepted that the large erratics of flint on the foreshore at Kilmore Quay, Co. Wexford, came by boat, while the many small boulders of brown granite found near the entrance of Lough Hyne, Co. Cork, close to a rough disused landing place were the same rocks used to build the lighthouse works on Clear Island, Co. Cork – they came from Cornwall. In Broadstrand Bay, on the west side of Courtmacsherry Bay, Co. Cork, a variety of igneous pebbles and boulders, most of them granite with coloured feldspars, were found in the clefts of an early glacial rock platform as well as in the gullies of small beaches. Farrington was in no doubt, having examined all likely local sources, that the boulders and pebbles in question were ballast, probably deposited 60 years before he recorded his observations in 1965.49

Freshwater fish

The first fish to come back to Ireland after the last Ice Age were the euryhaline species (those that can tolerate a wide range of salinity and are encountered in both salt and fresh water). These fish are able to maintain the concentration of chemical salts in their blood and body fluids regardless of the changes in the water around them. Thousands of years ago they almost certainly cruised around the coastline, following the northwards retreat of the glaciers, exploring the unfolding and warming aquatic systems, and penetrating the ice-free rivers and lakes. Maitland considered that the following 12 euryhaline fish colonised the freshwater systems of Ireland in early postglacial times:50 sea lamprey, river lamprey, Allis shad, Twaite shad, Atlantic salmon, brown trout, Arctic charr, pollan, smelt, European eel, three-spined stickleback and ten-spined stickleback. The latter, however, is considered by some to have been introduced (see below).

As to the stenohaline species (those that can tolerate only a narrow range of salinity), a question mark prevails over their provenance. The issue is twofold. Firstly, they are non-migratory although some, like the pike, have a capacity to spread rapidly across the land through interconnecting lakes and rivers. Secondly, they were not suited to the salt waters that surrounded all Irish shores from postglacial or earlier times. The four possible explanations for their presence are that they were already present during the last interglacial period and survived the final phase of the Ice Age in sheltered ice-free ponds; that they swam into Ireland, using the waterways in the land bridges between Ireland, Britain and the Continent; that they were once able to tolerate salt water and swam into Ireland across the sea, or that they were introduced by man or by some other agent.

The following species are generally considered to have been introduced to Ireland by man:51 brook lamprey, pike, carp, gudgeon, tench, bream, minnow, rudd, roach, dace, stone loach, perch and ten-spined stickleback. When were these first brought into Ireland? The weight of expert opinion is that probably most, if not all, were introduced sometime between the Norman invasions and the late nineteenth century. An examination of the Irish names for fish provides some corroborative insights: salmon or brown trout, not in the above list, have at least 30 different Irish names – including many local variants – authenticating their ancient presence in Ireland. By contrast, the dace and tench, both relatively recent arrivals, have only one and two Irish names respectively.52 However, this is subject to caution, as the Arctic charr and pollan, both prehistoric but rather scarce species, and not known to many, only carry a few names.

Cambrensis provides clues as to the origin of certain fish. The following translation, quoted by Went, is by Forester from Wright’s The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis.53,54

‘Sea-fishes are found in considerable abundance on all the coasts. The rivers and lakes, also, are plentifully stored with the sorts of fish peculiar to those waters, and especially three species: salmon and trout, muddy eels and oily shad. The Shannon abounds in lampreys, a dangerous delicacy indulged in by the wealthy.

This country, however, does not produce some fine fishes found in other countries, and some excellent fresh-water fishes, such as the pike, the perch, the roach, the barbel, the gardon [chub], and the gudgeon. Minnows, also, bullheads, and verones [minnows] are not found there, also no loches, or they are very rare.

On the other hand, the lakes of this country contain three species of fish which are found nowhere else. One is a sort of trout, called the salares, which are longer and rounder than trout, and which are white, close grained and good flavoured. The tymal, commonly called the umber, resembles the former kind of fishes, except that it is distinguished by a larger head. There are others which very much resemble the sea herring, both in shape and quality and in colour and taste. A third sort, exactly resembles the trout, except that it has no spots. The first sort is called Glassans, the second Cates, and third Brits. These three fish make their appearance in the summer only, and are never seen in the winter’.

It would appear from this text that the freshwater fish present in Ireland during the twelfth century included salmon, brown trout, eel, shad (probably both Twaite and Allis), sea and river lampreys, and almost certainly the brook lamprey, as the habitats of the three overlap. Amongst these early settlers, the sea and river lampreys, Atlantic salmon and the brown trout are anadromous, i.e. spend most of their lives in the sea but migrate to fresh water to spawn.

Other anadromous species arrived in Ireland from more southerly seas at the end of the last glaciation. They were the Allis and Twaite shads. Resembling herrings and found in shallow coastal waters and estuaries in western Europe, they run up the lower reaches of the larger rivers during the spawning season. In Ireland, however, the Allis shad has no known spawning site left. In fact, it is not certain whether the species is still here, as its presence is only supported by a few post-1960 records – in the Foyle estuary, Co. Derry, at two north Mayo sites, in the River Corrib, Co. Galway, and at one site in Cork. The Twaite shad shares the same coastal distribution and probably still breeds in a few Irish rivers such as the Nore, Suir and Barrow, all flowing into Waterford Harbour and the Cork Blackwater. When locked away in remote lakes, it developed into different subspecies, the Killarney shad, Alosa fallax killarnensis, being one of the most celebrated. Known locally as the ‘goureen’, it is restricted to Lough Leane and Muckross Lake, Co. Kerry, where it has been preserved for several thousand years. The smelt, also a coastal dweller in western Europe, imitates the anadromous behaviour of the shads. In Ireland it spawns in the rivers Shannon, Fergus and Foyle and perhaps at various sites in rivers Suir, Nore and Barrow. The remaining native euryhaline fish to arrive after the last Ice Age was the European eel, a catadromous species (one that migrates from rivers to the sea to spawn). Eels live in lakes and rivers and spawn in the Sargasso sea, after which the baby eels return to Ireland.

Once in Ireland the brown trout evolved a series of varieties, some of which are collectively known as sea trout (sometimes ascribed subspecific status as Salmo trutta trutta but not fully accepted by all scientists) with anadromous habits, and the darker, landlocked non-anadromous brown trout (sometimes ascribed the subspecific status Salmo trutta fario, again not fully accepted by all scientists). The latter have given rise to many other different varieties. For instance in Lough Melvin, Co. Leitrim, there are three clearly distinct stocks of brown trout: the ferox (Salmo trutta ferox), the gillaroo (Salmo trutta stomachius) and the sonaghan (Salmo trutta nigripannis). They are genetically different and spawning takes place in different parts of the lake.

Arthur Went who, apart from being the scientific advisor on fisheries to the Irish Government, was a specialist in questions concerning the history of fish in Ireland, believed that the pike was an introduced species, basing his arguments on an examination of historical documents including the statement by Cambrensis (see here). Cambrensis had a reasonable knowledge of Irish lakes and rivers. He mentions the pike as absent from Ireland. A further clue as to the late introduction of the species is supplied by the great historian Roderic O’Flaherty, who clearly ascertained that in 1684 the pike was absent from Connacht when he wrote: