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Welcome to Emerald Archives
Emerald Archives presents Ireland’s story one reference year at a time, from the deep prehistoric past to the modern era. Each article explores the evidence, people, places and developments associated with a particular year and places them within their wider historical setting. The collection brings together archaeology, politics, society, religion, culture, conflict, everyday life and changing landscapes in one continuously expanding timeline. New articles appear here as the archive grows. You can also explore the full Irish History Timeline, search the archive directly, or use Explore to move through the collection by period and subject.
30560–30551 BCE
Hollymount’s Intertill Freshwater
The nearest exceptionally informative evidence comes from County Fermanagh. In 1969, roadworks through a drumlin at Derryvree, near Maguiresbridge, exposed fine sands, silts and organic sediments lying between two thick sheets of glacial till. The sequence is decisive in one limited but important respect: ice had occupied the site, an interval without local glacier cover allowed freshwater deposits and organic matter to accumulate, and ice later returned to bury the landscape.
Dwarf Willow in Fermanagh
The Derryvree organic deposit produced the conventional radiocarbon determination BIRM-166, reported as 30,500 radiocarbon years BP with a substantial uncertainty of +1,170/−1,030 years. A radiocarbon age is not equivalent to a calendar age. Atmospheric carbon-14 concentrations changed through time, so laboratory measurements must be compared with calibration curves such as IntCal20. At this antiquity, calibration produces broad probability distributions rather than a precise date. The deposit is generally placed in the middle part of the Midlandian, the Irish name often used for the last glacial stage.
