{"id":29029,"date":"2014-10-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvaryny.com\/?p=29029"},"modified":"2026-08-29T18:40:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T15:40:56","slug":"irish-terrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvaryny.com\/en\/breed-irish-terrier","title":{"rendered":"Irish Terrier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Irish Terrier<\/strong> is a whole-coloured red terrier built on what its own standard calls the lines of speed \u2014 and the breed the English-speaking world nicknamed the daredevil<\/em>. It has an unusually specific biography: its colour was narrowed to a single type by deliberate selection at the end of the 19th century, its reputation was made in the trenches of the First World War, and its principal inherited problem is written into the text of the official standard as a disqualifying fault. What follows is built on primary sources \u2014 FCI Standard No. 139, peer-reviewed papers and breed-club documents. More breed guides on Tvaryny<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing up front: this is not a default family dog. The Irish Terrier is devoted to people and, at the same time, ready to take up a challenge from another dog \u2014 and that duality is the part most breed descriptions quietly skip. It gets its own section here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irish Terrier: the breed at a glance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"An<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Parameter<\/th>Value<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Country of origin<\/td>Ireland<\/td><\/tr>
FCI classification<\/td>Group 3 Terriers, Section 1 \u2014 Large and medium-sized Terriers; without working trial<\/td><\/tr>
Standard<\/td>FCI No. 139; valid version dated 13.03.2001, published 02.04.2001<\/td><\/tr>
Height at withers (FCI)<\/td>approximately 18 inches (45.5 cm) \u2014 a single figure, not split by sex<\/td><\/tr>
Height at withers (The Kennel Club, UK)<\/td>ideal: dogs 48 cm, bitches 46 cm<\/td><\/tr>
Weight (FCI)<\/td>dogs 27 lb (12.25 kg); bitches 25 lb (11.4 kg)<\/td><\/tr>
Colour<\/td>whole-coloured: red, red wheaten or yellow red<\/td><\/tr>
Lifespan<\/td>13\u201315 years<\/td><\/tr>
Purpose per the standard<\/td>versatile farmyard dog, family pet, guard dog, hunter and gundog<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Note the discrepancy in height. The FCI gives one figure \u2014 approximately 45.5 cm \u2014 with no split between dogs and bitches, while the British Kennel Club sets an ideal for each sex separately. These are two documents from two organisations, and flattening them into a single “46\u201348 cm” range is not accurate. Weight, by contrast, the FCI does split explicitly: 12.25 kg against 11.4 kg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History: how red pushed out every other colour<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The historical summary in the FCI standard is worth reading closely, because it contradicts several popular retellings. Ireland produced four terrier breeds, and the Irish Terrier is, in the standard’s own wording, possibly<\/em> the oldest of them \u2014 but the records are so scarce that proving it conclusively would be difficult. The standard names no county and no dockside rat-catchers: the country of origin in the document is simply Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colour is the interesting part. Before the 1880s the breed’s colour had not been settled: apart from red, dogs were sometimes black and tan and sometimes brindle. At the end of the 19th century breeders made a deliberate effort to breed out the black-and-tans and the brindles, so that by the 20th century every Irish Terrier showed the red coat. In other words, the breed’s signature colour is not an ancient given \u2014 it is the result of roughly two decades of conscious selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two dates worth remembering: the first breed club was set up in Dublin on 31 March 1879<\/strong>, and the Irish Terrier was the first member of the terrier group to be recognised by the English Kennel Club, in the late 19th century, specifically as a native Irish breed<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One more thread that often gets tangled: the modern red type took shape alongside the other wire-coated terriers of these islands \u2014 the Lakeland Terrier<\/a>, the Welsh Terrier<\/a> and the Kerry Blue Terrier<\/a>, the last of which also belongs to the Irish four. The specific 19th-century crosses are poorly documented, which is why the standard says nothing about them \u2014 and neither will we repeat them as fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First World War: a messenger dog in the trenches<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is that rare case where a breed’s war story is confirmed both by the official standard and by the man who trained the dogs. FCI Standard No. 139 states it plainly: the Irish Terrier’s reputation was enhanced during the First World War<\/strong>, when they were used as messenger dogs in the terrifying noise and confusion of trench warfare, thereby proving both their intelligence and their fearlessness. Note the timing: during<\/em> the war, not after it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British War Dog School was established in 1917 by Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Hautenville Richardson, and it trained dogs principally as messengers and sentries for work close to the front line. The Irish Terrier Club of America records his verdict on the breed: “I can say with decided emphasis that the Irish Terriers of the service more than did their part. Many a soldier is alive today through the effort of one of these very terriers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breed also reached literature, and here too the record is checkable. The hero of Jack London’s novel Jerry of the Islands<\/em> (1917) is an Irish Terrier \u2014 in the opening chapter London describes him as a smooth-coated, golden-sorrel Irish terrier. In the foreword, signed at Waikiki Beach on 5 June 1915, London explains that the book would never have been written but for a real Irish terrier puppy called Peggy, whom he and his wife met aboard the ketch Minota<\/em> in the Solomon Islands. The companion novel, Michael, Brother of Jerry<\/em>, follows that same dog’s brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FCI Standard No. 139: what the document actually says<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Irish<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The standard describes the outline through speed. The dog must look active, lively, lithe and wiry, with plenty of substance yet free of clumsiness, because speed and endurance matter here as much as power. The wording is that the Irish Terrier must be neither cloddy nor cobby, but framed on the lines of speed, showing a graceful, racy outline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n