THE KERRY BREED. 77 



timber for fuel, and above all, the ravages of incessant wars, 

 Lave long since eradicated. Giraldus Cambrensis, who came 

 into Ireland after its first conquest by Henry II. in the twelfth 

 century, states, that the country was full of woods on every 

 side, but that the English, on gaining possession of it, cut 

 them down, partly to deprive the banditti of their lurking- 

 places, and partly to gain space for cultivation. For centuries 

 the work of destruction proceeded on every hand ; and, on the 

 quelling of the great Rebellion in the reign of Elizabeth, the 

 remaining forests were still further reduced. To the motives 

 which formerly operated was now added the desire of gain, 

 and immense ship-loads of magnificent timber were sent to 

 foreign parts, and many charcoal manufactories were esta- 

 blished. Even in the seventeenth century, the ruin of these 

 noble woods had not been completed. Boate, who published 

 his Natural History of Ireland about the middle of the cen- 

 tury, though he complains that many great woods which the 

 maps represent had vanished, still describes numbers as ex- 

 isting which are now no more. Speaking of the province of 

 Leinster, he says, that Wicklow, and King's and Queen's 

 counties, were throughout full of woods, some many miles 

 long and broad, and that part of the counties of Wexford and 

 Carlow were greatly furnished with them. Of Ulster, he 

 writes, that there were great forests in the county of Donegal, 

 and in the north of Tyrone ; likewise at Fermagh, along 

 Lake Erne, in Antrim, and in the north part of Down. The 

 greater part of the latter county, however, as well as Ar- 

 magh, Monaghan, and Cavan, which, in the war with Tyrone, 

 had been encumbered with thick forests, had then become 

 almost bare. With respect to Munster, he tells us, that the 

 counties of Kerry and Tipperary possessed many great 

 forests, notwithstanding that the English, especially the 

 Earl of Cork, had made great havoc with the woods. 



In this manner proceeded the spoiling of the natural riches 

 of the beautiful Isle. The last Wolf was killed at the be- 



