Breed History
The origins of the Glen of Imaal Terrier are obscured by the mists of time, but it can be said for certain that this is a very ancient breed....
Named for the Glen of Imaal in County Wicklow, Ireland, the Glen is considered to be indigenous to Ireland. Though the Glen of Imaal Terriers isolation in the forbidding Glen area of southern Ireland has resulted in its being relatively unknown to the world, and indeed to the rest of Ireland, for most of its history, the people of the Wicklow area have been familiar with the breed for thousands of years. The Glen of Imaal Terrier is a phenomenally versatile dog, and an invaluable asset on the farm. The dog was a champion hunter of fox, badger and rat, as well as a pit fighter and turnspit dog. (A turnspit dog does just that: it runs in a wheel in the kitchen, turning the spit and ensuring that meat is evenly cooked). Very few turnspit dogs made it through the Industrial Revolution, as this job was largely taken over by more advanced technology, but in a bizarre twist of fate the Glen of Imaal Terrier total concentration in a very small part of the world was actually responsible for its salvation. The remote Glen area of Ireland remained rural and largely untouched by technological innovation in the 19th century, and the Glen of Imaal Terrier was still working away into the 1900s. In 1934, the Glen of Imaal Terrier became the third terrier recognized by the Irish Kennel Club, and the dog began to appear in shows, where its sharp badger hunting skills were put on display. World War II led to a downturn in the dogs numbers, but renewed breeding afterward kept the breed alive. The Glen of Imaal Terrier was brought to the United States in the 1980s, admitted to the American Kennel Clubs Miscellaneous Class in 2001, and recognized as a member of the AKC Terrier Group in 2004.