>>48267281The Irish word for wolf literally means "son of the land". It was believed there that wolves were the true owners of the land, and humans just lived there.
Britain compared the Irish themselves to wolves (to the point the place was sometimes called "Wolfland"), and set about a policy of exterminating wolves and enacting "Surrender and Regrant" - confiscating land and then granting all of it to the local chieftain, placing them under the British model of land ownership.
