Mac Tíre

Mac Tíre (Son of the Land)

Madra Allta (Dog of the Wilds)

Faolchú (Wolf-wolfhound)

Cú Alla (Wild Wolfhound)

Wolves are common to Canada, with about 50,000 to 60,000 wolves living across 80% of their historical range. This makes Canada globally one of the main strongholds for the species.

Wolves were present and quite stable in Ireland until very recently. Wolves were respected by the native Irish for their bravery, warlike abilities, cooperation in a pack, and natural leadership. The wolf is controlled, disciplined, commands or follows in a pack just as a king or warrior should. Wolves were regarded as noble and just animals which make use of opportunities to take what they need to survive, but take no more than that. Based on their warrior characteristics, the wolf was connected to kingship and feature regularly in Irish stories.

Wolves were also otherworldly, interacting with the dead. Famous accounts from the medieval period tell of a band of enchanted werewolves living in Ossory, cursed to live every other seven years as wolves. Ring forts were built to both protect humans from raids but also to protect livestock from native wolf packs.

English settlers in Ireland despised the wolf and referred to Ireland as “Wolfland”, seeing this as a sign of Ireland’s barbarity. Anti-wolf legislation and bounties were established under Oliver Cromwell, with the final wolf shot in Co. Carlow in 1786, a mother dying beside a stream. By the period of Canadian colonization, any living Gaelic memory of the wolf had been lost. Robert MacDougall, who settled near Godderich Ontario in 1836, tried to give his Gaelic readers in Scotland some idea of the animal: “If the bear is a calm silent animal, that is not the case with the wolf. It makes a horrific roar. When it lifts its voice, and lets out the first howl, I do not know just what I could compare it to. A twelve-pronged antlered stag, bellowing in a narrow, rocky, cavernous glen, around the dead of midnight, during the calm weather of the rutting season, is the only thing I know like it...it certainly inspires fear in the heart of many a poor stranger, newly arrived in the country.”

One early story that comes to us is from an Irish settler to the Huron Tract, Ontario. Upon arrival, he purchased a flock of sheep, and thinking that he had no enemies in Canada he left them out in their enclosure overnight: “My gentlemen went in and went to bed. He slept serenely, securely. He rose in the morning, and he went outside. He looked at the bare field where he had left the flock, but when he did, what could he say when he had nothing left to see, but one or two tattered hides, and fragments of bones? The wolves had come at night.”

Béaloideas - Folklore

Ó Thomás Ó Cléirigh, Co. Maigh Eo

Bhí gabhar ann fadó agus bhí sé chinn de mhionnáin aici. Lá amháin agus í ag dul amach dúirt sí leo gan aoinne a ligint isteach. Tar éis tamaill tháinig an mac tíre. "Cé tá ansin?" arsa siadsan. "Bhur máthair", ar seisean. D'iarr siad air a chos a chur isteach, agus chuir. "Gread leat as sin", arsa siad. "Ní tusa ár máthair, mar tá cosa bána fúithi".

D'imigh an mac tíre go dtí an muileann. Chimil sé plúr ar a chosa. Tháinig sé ar ais arís go dtí na mionnáin. Nuair chonaic na mionnáin na cosa bána cheap siad gurbh é a máthair a bhí ann dáríre agus d'oscail siad an doras.

Nuair chonaic siad gurbh é an mac tíre a bhí ann rith siad i bhfolach ins gach aon áit. Chuaigh ceann acu isteach sa chlog, chuaigh ceann eile sa bhosca, ceann eile sa bhuicéad, ceann faoin mbord agus an ceann deiridh taobh thiar den doras.

Ach mo léan fuair an mac tíre gach ceann acua ach an ceann a bhí sa chlog, agus d'ith sé iad.

Nuair a tháinig an gabhar abhaile d'inis an gabhar óg an scéal go léir di. Fuair sise an siosúr agus snáthaid agus chuaigh sí ar lorg an mhic tíre. Fuair sí é sa choill agus é ina chodladh. Ghearr sí a bholg agus léim na mionnáin amach. Chuir sí clocha isteach sa mhac tíre agus dhún sí an gearradh arís leis an snáth agus snáthaid.

Ansin tháinig an gabhar abhaile agus na mionnáin léi, iad uilig go sásta. Nuair a dhúisigh an mac tíre chuaigh sé le deoch a fháil ach thit sé isteach sa abhainn.

“The Schools’ Collection, Volume 105, Page 153-154” by Dúchas © National Folklore Collection, UCD is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.

Seanfhocail - Proverbs

Faol i gcraiceann caorach - A wolf in the skin of a sheep (a wolf in sheep’s clothing)

Mac tíre i gcraiceann na fóisce - A wolf in the skin of a yearling ewe (a wolf in sheep’s clothing)

Amhail faolchú faoi thréad caorach - The spectre of a wolf about a flock of sheep (something ominous and worrisome)

Cím chugham anoir, fear na sruthán, fear na sruthanna, fear na coise caoile crua, agus mo dhá thrua mo lao gan rith - I see him towards me from the east, the man of the streams, the man of the currents, the man of the slender hard foot, and my two pities that my dear fawn cannot run (Sin é dúirt caora nuair a chonaic sí mac tíre ag teacht / What a sheep says when she sees a wolf coming)

Is tréine bás ná mac tíre a bhíonn ag marú na n-uan san oíche nuair a shíleann cách nach mbíonn baol air, bíonn sé ar ball ar an gclár le claonadh - Death is more powerful than a wolf that kills lambs in the night when everyone believes that there is no danger to them, he is presently on the plain with inclination

Má ligeann tú do chlann le mor-uaisle na tíre / Is measa dhuit le cothú iad ná coileán mac tíre - If you hire your children to the nobles of the country, it is worse for you to sustain them then a wolf pup