Castlepook’s Hyena Galleries
Ireland was then part of the long last glacial cycle, but it should not be pictured simply as an island sealed beneath permanent ice. Marine Isotope Stage 3, broadly c. 57,000–29,000 years ago, was climatically restless. Greenland ice-core records and North Atlantic sediments reveal abrupt warmer and colder swings. The British–Irish Ice Sheet was already an important presence, but its precise extent and behaviour around 34,000 calibrated years ago remain debated. Recent synthesis points to earlier growth, retreat and renewed advance before the Last Glacial Maximum, rather than one uncomplicated march towards a frozen peak.