The Irish Greyhound

Canis Graius Hibernicus

This is one of the largest of the canine race, with an air at once beautiful, striking, and majestic. He has been known to grow to the extraordinary height of four feet although the general standard is about three feet.

In shape the Irish Greyhound somewhat resembles the common greyhound only that he is much larger and more muscular in his formation, clumsy in all his different parts, and is quite unserviceable for hunting either the stag, fox, or hare. His chief use in former times was in clearing the country of wolves and wild boars for which his great size and strength peculiarly adapted him.

The colour of the Irish Greyhound is a pale cinnamon or fawn. His aspect is mild, and his disposition gentle and peaceable. It is said he is greatly an overmatch for either the mastiff or bull-dog; and when he fights, he generally seizes his antagonist by the back, and shakes him to death, which his great strength enables him to do with ease.

M. Buffon supposes the great Danish dog to be only a variety of the Irish Greyhound; and Mr Pennant was of opinion that the French Matin and the Albanian dog were also varieties of the same.

The Irish Greyhound is now rarely to be met with even in his native country.

The Marquis of Sligo is among the few individuals who possess that fine animal in a state of tolerable purity; he keeps a number at Westport, in the county of Mayo, Ireland, where there is a person employed to look after them. It is said that great care is necessary to preserve the breeds and to keep them in good health.

Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Esq., one of the vice-presidents of the Linnsean Society, took the measurement of one of the Marquis of Sligo's dogs, which was as follows :
" From the point of the nose to the tip of the tail, sixty-one inches ; tail, seventeen and a half inches long ; from the tip of the nose to the back part of the skull, ten inches ; from the back part of the skull to the beginning of the tail, thirty-three inches ; from the toe to the top of the fore-shoulder, twenty-eight inches and a half; the length of the leg, sixteen inches ; from the point of the hind-toes to the top of the hind-shoulders, thirteen inches ; from the point of the nose to the eye, four inches and a half; the ears, six inches long ; round the widest part of the belly, (about three inches from the fore-legs,) thirty-five inches ; twenty-six inches round the hind-part, close to the hind-legs ; the hair short and smooth ; the colour of some brown and white, of others black and white."

They seemed good-tempered animals, but, from the accounts Mr Lambert received, it is obvious that they must have degenerated, particularly in point of size.

Dr Goldsmith says he has seen a dozen of these dogs, and assures us the largest was about four feet high, and as tall as a calf of a year old.

extract from:
"BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND AUTHENTIC ANECDOTES OF DOGS, Exhibiting Remarkable Instances of the Instinct, Sagacity, and Social Disposition of this Faithftil Animal", BY CAPTAIN THOMAS BROWN, 1829