Irish wolfhound

The Irish Wolfhound is a historic sighthound dog breed from Ireland that has by its presence and substantial size inspired literature, poetry and mythology. Like all sighthounds, it was used to pursue game by speed, it was also famed as a guardian dog, specializing in protection against and for the hunting of wolves. The original dog-type was presumed extinct by most knowledgeable authors but recreated specifically for the canine fancy mainly by Captain George A. Graham in the late 19th century The modern breed, classified by recent genetic research into the Sighthound United Kingdom Rural Clade,:Fig. S2 has been used by coursing hunters who have prized it for its ability to dispatch game caught by swifter sighthounds. In 391 AD there is a reference to large dogs by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, a Roman Consul who received seven 'canes Scotici' as a gift to be used for fighting lions and bears, and who wrote 'all Rome viewed (them) with wonder'. Scoti is a Latin name for the Gaels (ancient Irish). Dansey, the early 19th century translator of the first complete version of Arrian's work in English, On Coursing, suggested the Irish and Scottish 'greyhounds' were derived from the same ancestor, the vertragus, and had expanded with the Scoti from Ireland across the Western Isles and into what is today Scotland. The dog-type is imagined by some to be very old. Wolfhounds were used as hunting dogs by the Gaels, who called them Cú Faol (Irish: Cú Faol, Irish pronunciation:  'hound' 'wolf' or wolfhound). Dogs are mentioned, as cú in Irish laws and in Irish literature which dates from the 6th century or, in the case of the Sagas, from the old Irish period - AD 600-900. The word 'Cú' often became an added prefix of respect on the names of warriors as well as kings denoting that they were worthy of the respect and loyalty of a Cú. CúChulainn, the name of a legend, which translates literally as 'hound of Culann', gained his name as a child, known then as Sétanta, he slew the ferocious guard dog of Culann, forcing him to offer himself as a replacement. In discussing the systematic evidence of historic dog sizes in Ireland, the Irish zooarchaeologist Finbar McCormick stressed that no dogs of Irish Wolfhound size are known from sites of the Iron Age period of 1000 BC through to the early Christian period to 1200 AD, and on the basis of the historic dog bones available, dogs of current Irish Wolfhound size seem to be a relatively modern development; ' it must be concluded that the dog of CúChulainn was no larger than an alsatian and not the calf-sized beast of the popular imagination .' Hunting dogs were coveted and were frequently given as gifts to important personages and foreign nobles. King John of England, in about 1210 presented an Irish hound, Gelert, to Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales. The poet The Hon William Robert Spencer immortalized this hound in a poem. In his History of Ireland completed 1571, Edmund Champion gives a description of the hounds used for hunting wolves in the Dublin and Wicklow mountains. He says: 'They (the Irish) are not without wolves and greyhounds to hunt them, bigger of bone and limb than a colt'. Due to their popularity overseas many were exported to European royal houses leaving numbers in Ireland depleted. This led to a declaration by Oliver Cromwell himself being published in Kilkenny on 27 April 1652 to ensure that sufficient numbers remained to control the wolf population. The early 18th century engraving from Entwurf einiger Thiere by Johann Elias Ridinger is the oldest known image of the original wolfdog. References to the Irish Wolfhound in the 18th century tell of its great size, strength and greyhound shape as well as its scarcity. Writing in 1790, Bewick described it as the largest and most beautiful of the dog kind; about 36 inches high, generally of a white or cinnamon colour, somewhat like the Greyhound but more robust. He said that their aspect was mild, disposition peaceful, and strength so great that in combat the Mastiff or Bulldog was far from being an equal to them. The last wolf in Ireland was killed in Co. Carlow in 1786. It is thought to have been killed at Myshall, on the slopes of Mount Leinster by a pack of wolfdogs kept by a Mr Watson of Ballydarton. The wolfhounds that remained in the hands of a few families who were mainly descendants of the old Irish chieftains were now symbols of status rather than used as hunters, and these were said to be the last of their race. Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) reported that he could find no more than three wolfdogs when he visited Ireland. During the 1836 meeting of the Geological Society of Dublin, Dr. Scouler presented the 'Notices of Animals which have disappeared from Ireland', with the wolfdog mentioned.