The article’s intriguing implication is that Derryvree’s wetland and Castlepook’s fauna reveal a mobile, patchy Ice Age Ireland rather than a uniformly frozen island or a settled human landscape. Yet the potentially cut-marked reindeer femur shows how much hinges on context: a butchery trace could indicate a fleeting visit, while disturbed cave deposits limit conclusions. Derryvree’s local environmental archive and Castlepook’s time-averaged assemblage also demonstrate scales of evidence. What combination of microscopic analysis, secure dating, stratigraphy, and comparison with north-west European sites would persuasively clarify whether people exploited periglacial opportunities, and how should that possibility shape interpretations of Ireland’s connectivity?