Mooney Goes Wild - Monday September 7th 2026
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Why are wolves returning to Ireland and what does their howl mean?
This is Mooney Goes Wild on
RTE Radio One.
Yes, Mooney Goes Wild with you until 11 tonight, and you'll be delighted, overexcited, and positively thrilled to hear that this is another Terry Flanagan Report special. For more than 25 years, our reporter Terry Flanagan has been roaming the highways and byways of Ireland in search of answers to your wildlife queries. He's been up every tree, down every ferny ditch, and through every hedge. In pursuit of a good story. If there's a mystery in the natural world, Terry is usually the man to solve it. He is, after all, the Sherlock Holmes of RTE Wildlife Reporting. Over the years, he's investigated everything from Tuesday's dog To mysterious cat parcels. and countless countryside curiosities that have left listeners scratching their heads.
Tonight we're dipping into the archives to revisit some classic terrier reports. We'll uncover the mystery of communal rook roosting in Port Leash, meet the swans of Loch Ennal, and pause to savour the orchids of Mount Marion. But first, we begin with a creature that has fascinated, frightened, and inspired people for centuries. A creature woven through folklore, legend, and history. And one that still captures our imagination today.
Oh
Wolves. Terry Well, Derek, for this special programme I'm starting up in County Donegal, not far from Bunkrana. In twenty nineteen I travelled to Wild Ireland, a newly opened wildlife sanctuary, and I went with the intention of seeing a group of animals that once roamed the country, but sadly are no longer to be found in the wild. That's an incredible sound that Killian.
Isn't it amazing? Especially on a misty morning like this in the hills of Donegal to hear the wolves howling again here for the first time in three hundred years. I can see
them. I can see the one three of them there. They're fantastic. They're much bigger than I thought they'd be.
Bear in mind, Terry, that these guys are only six months old, so they're they're big, big animals and they're gonna get a lot bigger.
Now, Killian McLaughlin, you are a biologist and you're a solicitor. Yes. And you've started a sanctuary up here in County Donegal. Wild Arnold. Tell me a little bit about it. Tell me what it is here, what we're looking at.
Okay, so this all started in my back garden when I was a young lad. I used to rescue crows and hedgehogs and all sorts of animals and very often animals couldn't be released back into the wild, so in my back garden is where they stayed. Eventually the back garden became too small and I always had the ambition of purchasing a large plot of land and developing a wildlife. Sanctuary. So from there the concept of wild Ireland really evolved. I always noticed that uh when people used to come and visit my little sanctuary in the back garden that they were fascinated by the wild animals, particularly the native wild animals.
But that's what you would have had then. Yes. Looking in here now at these walls and listening to them, sure. They're not native animals or certainly not now.
Not now, Terry, but they were native here at one time. In fact wolves were so common in Ireland that Ireland was once nicknamed Wolfland. But how long is it since the last wolf was here in Ireland? The last wolf was killed in Ireland in seventeen eighty six in County Carlow. Right. By a pack of Irish wolfhounds. It was hunted down from Mount Leinster and killed by the pack of wolves, which is pretty incredible. That's not that long ago when you think about it. The last wolf in Ulster, I believe, was killed about twenty years before that. Yeah. So
they would have been fairly common in Ireland at that time, to that time.
Yes, they were very common in Ireland. In fact, when Oliver Cromwell put the price on their heads, there was up to a thousand wolf pelts being exported out of Ireland every year for the fashion industry or whatever they used them for back then. It was Cromwell when he came to Ireland, he put the nail in the coffin for the wolf. He put a price on their heads. He put five pounds on a male wolf and six pound on a female wolf's head.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why are wolves returning to Ireland and what does their howl mean?
0:00–6:55
2
How can you safely help a goldfinch that crashes into a clinic window?
6:55–13:05
3
What causes birds to fly into glass windows and how can it be prevented?
13:05–18:39
4
Which orchid species thrive on Mount Marion and how can you identify them?
18:39–24:32
5
What is the tar‑spot fungus on sycamore leaves and does it harm the tree?
24:32–30:51
6
Why do thousands of rooks gather in Portlaoise’s People’s Park each evening?
30:51–37:33
7
How do mute swans court and protect their territory at Lough Ennell?
37:33–45:16
8
How are hares captured at Dublin Airport and safely relocated to new habitats?
45:16–52:07