Clare Woulfes

By Paul MacCotter

   The principal branch of this family were those of Teermaclane, near Ennis. These were descended from Stephen Woulfe, one of the sons of James of Corbally (dead by 1638), and are thus a branch of the Limerick City Woulfes. This Stephen was living in 1635 but little else is known about him. Some sources claim the line descends from his son, another Stephen, but there is a possibility that there was in fact, only one Stephen. In 1659 a Stephen Woulfe, gentleman, was resident at Teermaclane, and I suspect him to have been the man of that name resident in Limerick in 1635. These lands were part of the Thomond estate, and the family were able to ride out the Cromwellian Confiscations as Catholics due to their status as middlemen under the Thomond earls. Stephen was succeeded by his son, Nicholas, who obtained another lease of Teermaclane, along with other lands at Caherush and Emlagh, near Milltown Malbay, from the Thomonds in 1664. Nicholas supported the Jacobite cause in 1689 and was pardoned in 1692. He lived to a ripe old age before dying in 1725.

  Here's the old Woulfe estate named Tiermaclaine as it looks today. It's about 6 miles south of Ennis in County Clare. The very kind Carrig family now owns it, and during our 2000 trip, they showed me the sale documents signed by Maude Alice Woulfe in 1906. Mister Carrig says the house has been a ruin since the 1870's. Burkes' says the house was in ruin in the 1840's.

   The line continued through his son, another Stephen, who converted to the Established Church in 1758 in order to save his lands from confiscation under the Penal Laws. He was father to Nicholas of Teermaclane, who died in 1765, in turn father to Stephen, who died in Liege in Belgium in 1794, whose heir was his son, Peter Woulfe of Teermaclane, who died childless in 1865. Peter's younger brother, Stephen, was the most famous member of this family. Qualifying as a solicitor in 1814, he went on to a distinguished career in the law and government, holding the positions of solicitor-general, chief baron of the court of exchequer and attorney-general. In 1838 he became lord chief baron of Ireland and died in 1840 at the pinnacle of his career. Stephen was succeeded by a son, Stephen Roland Woulfe of Teermaclane, who, while living during the 1860s, later died without heirs bringing to an end the mainline of the Teermaclane branch. Burke's Family Records records a descent in the female line through Joanna Woulfe, daughter of Stephen who died in 1794. She married Terence Flanagan in 1813 and had several sons who adopted the style Woulfe-Flanagan. One of these was Stephen Woulfe-Flanagan of Co. Roscommon, a judge in the court of chancery until his death in 1885. His son, John Woulfe-Flanagan, a barrister born in 1852, was still alive in 1885 but my source for this genealogy does not extend beyond the latter date and I do not know if he left descendants. *one other note from Declan Barron on a descendant of Stephen...a marraige notice from the Ennis Chronicle Sept 23 1829...In Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin, James Kelly, Esq., of Dominick Street, to Eliza, daughter of the late Stephen Woulfe, Esq., of Tirmaclane, in this county, and niece to the late Admiral Macnamara...mw

   There were a number of offshoots of the Teermaclane family, principally those of Ennis. This branch was descended from Patrick Woulfe, younger brother to the Nicholas of Teermaclane who died in 1725. Patrick died in 1697 and was succeeded by his son, James Woulfe of Ennis, who emigrated to Paris where he died in 1749, leaving a son, Lawrence and a daughter, Mary, who married her distant cousin, Patrick, of the mainline there in 1747, and whose son was still living in Paris in 1770. Yet another branch of the Teermaclane line descended from Patrick Woulfe of Emlagh, a younger son of Nicholas of Teermaclane (obit 1725). Patrick was a Jacobite pardoned in 1694 and who died in 1719 leaving several sons. One of these was Anthony of Lifford, Co Clare, who became a Protestant in 1738 and who died in 1754 leaving a son, James, who disappears from history soon afterwards. Other sons of Patrick were Ignatius of Emlagh, who converted in 1758, and James of Cahirash, who died in 1758 leaving a bastard son, John, who was still at Cahirash in 1772, when he became a Protestant.

    *Further note on John Woulfe from Declan Barron...The Library came across a Grand Jury Presentment book for circa 1789-91.listed in 1791 is John Woulfe. (his original signature can also be seen here)...mw

    In addition to those above there appears to have been yet a second branch in Ennis who, based on their christian name pattern, must have been another line of descendants of the Limerick Corbally family, but we do not have full details of the pedigree of this line. One Andrew Woulfe was a Jacobite burgess of Ennis and father to Alice, who married the James Woulfe who went to Paris. She was buried in Ennis in 1748. Another daughter may have been the Anstance Woulfe of Ennis who married in 1712, her bondsman being Thomas Woulfe of Limerick. In 1738 Anthony Woulfe, an Ennis merchant, converted to the Protestant Church.

   There are a few other references to Woulfes in Clare which cannot be tied in to the above branches. In 1659 one Thomas Woulfe, Gentleman, was a titulado at Poulaforia near Tulla, but the most interesting of these branches is represented by the Peter Woulfe, the famous minerologist and chemist, born 'at Tircullan near Limerick' in 1727. (There is a record of such a place in Co. Clare and it may represent a corruption of Teermaclane). He studied in England and the Continent and was the inventor of "Woulfe's Bottle", an apparatus for passing gasses through liquids. He died in London in 1803, having become rather insane, spending his last years trying to turn base metals into gold. He began his education in Madrid "where his brother lived", and this brother must be the Estevan Woulfe, a Madrid merchant on record between the years 1769-1774, who was stated to have been born in Co. Clare.

  The Griffith's Valuation of the mid-19th century lists nearly one dozen Wolfe/Woulfe households in Co. Clare, and this represents the only significant occurrence of the surname anywhere in Ireland which can be connected with the old Limerick Ulf/Woulfes, although a few of these may be West Limerick Le Lu/Woulfes who crossed the Shannon.