Edmond Woulfe (b. 1821)

Edmond Woulfe, also referred to in some places as Edward, was baptized on February 2, 1821, at Garryantanavalla, parish of Listowel, County Kerry. He was the son of Richard James Woulfe, a Catholic farmer, and Johanna Relihan Woulfe. His baptismal sponsors were Jeremiah Maher and Honora McCoy. Woulfe’s siblings included James Richard (b. 1800), Maurice Richard (b. 1802), John Richard (b. 1809), Ellen (b. ca. 1810), Thomas Richard (b. 1811), Johanna (b. 1812), Richard (b. 1815), Margaret Ellen (b. 1818), and Patrick (b. 1822).

Virtually nothing is known of Ned Woulfe’s life. In Wolfe’s History of Clinton County (1911), Judge Patrick B. Wolfe describes his grandfather Richard J. Woulfe as “the agent having charge of the property of the Knight of Kerry.” The eighteenth knight of Kerry was Maurice FitzGerald and one of his properties, located near Listowel, was Ballinruddery. Richard Woulfe likely leased his own land, as well, and in 1844, his eldest son James and James’s son Edmond took responsibility for that property.

In the meantime, many of Edmond Woulfe’s siblings and cousins immigrated to the United States. These included his brother John R. Wolfe and their first cousin Maurice Wolfe, who sailed together on the Cornelia in 1847; brother Thomas R. Wolfe, who sailed the James H. Shepherd in 1848; cousin Richard Wolfe, who took the Thomas H. Perkins in 1848; brother Maurice R. Wolfe, who took the Senator in 1849; and brother Richard Wolfe, who sailed the Liverpool in 1849. Their cousin John E. Wolfe and his sisters also immigrated. The Wolfes settled first in LaSalle County, Illinois; some moved on to Clinton County, Iowa.

About 1841 Woulfe married Mary Liston, and the couple had at least three, but likely as many as six, children: Edmond E. (b. ca. 1842), James (b. 1848), and Margaret (b. 1849).

In 1851, the couple moved with their children to Ashgrove, directly south of the city of Limerick. Nothing more is known of their lives. He is buried at the Templeathea graveyard, County Limerick.

Top of the page: woods in Garryantanavally (Google Street View)