Stories are still told about Jasper Wolfe in West Cork. He led a remarkable and dangerous existence in the turbulent early years of the twentieth century.
Born in 1872, a Methodist shopkeeper’s son, he became a highly successful solicitor in Skibbereen. It was soon said that he had ‘all West Cork for a client.’ A strong supporter of Home Rule, he gave an acclaimed speech at the rally in London in 1912 that launched the Irish Protestant Home Rule movement, upstaging speakers such as George Bernard Shaw and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
After Easter 1916 he was appointed Crown Solicitor for the City and West Riding of Cork, and put the Crown case at the inquest into the murder of the republican Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomás Maccurtain. He was soon a top target for the IRA. In an astonishing twist of fortune, having been three times sentenced to death by the IRA, he subsequently became a defence lawyer for dissident Republicans after the Civil War.
In 1927 he was elected to the Dáil as an Independent candidate and topped the poll in his second general election. Greatly admired in legal circles, he was elected president of the Law Society of Ireland in 1940 – Ireland’s top honour for solicitors – and the first from Cork.
Jasper was clever, convivial and hard drinking. Personally fearless, he was cherished for the stories his exploits generated. More seriously, he stood for an Ireland at peace and at ease with itself.
Published by the Collins Press in hardback at €22.95, Jasper Wolfe of Skibbereen by Jasper Ungoed Thomas is available from Skibbereen Bookshop.
