James M. Woulfe (ca. 1651–1704)

James Maurice Woulfe, also known as James of Inchereagh, was born about 1651 at Inchereagh, near present-day Athea, on the River Galey, in western County Limerick. His father was Maurice James Woulfe, a Catholic farmer; the identity of his mother is unknown. He had at least one sibling, Maurice, and possibly another, Richard.

Virtually nothing is known of Woulfe’s life except that he likely farmed in West Limerick and, with an unknown wife, had eight children: six daughters, three of whom are said to have immigrated to the United States; Maurice James (b. 1690); and Richard (b. ca. 1690). Family oral history—contained in a letter by Jane C. “Dollie” Woulfe and dated August 1956 from Cratloe, County Limerick—suggests that Richard died young.

“The story is that he got chilled while on a visit eastward down in the plain of Limerick and was buried in Monagay churchyard,” the letter reads. “It was winter and the snow lay so deep that the body could not be brought home.”

According to another letter by Dollie Woulfe, dated January 5, 1947, “This James Maurice was with a brother, named Richard, I think—ploughing one day near his house in Inchereagh when they saw a man running across the fields towards them. After crossing a fence, he disappeared. After a while James told his brother to go and see what had happened. He found the man lying senseless in a dyke. They brought him to and found out he was a messenger from Limerick to the Fizmaurices, Lords of Kerry, to tell them of the fall of Limerick to William of Orange.” This would have been in 1690.

James Woulfe died in 1704 and is buried at the Templeathea graveyard.

Top of the page: Athea, December 26, 1947, by Caoimhín Ó Danachair

Selected Sources

Letter from Dollie Woulfe to Richard W. Wolfe, January 5, 1947.

Letter from Dollie Woulfe to Sr. Mary Caelan (Helen Woulfe), August 1956.