Castlepook’s Wandering Herds
Ireland was approaching, but had not yet reached, the fullest expansion of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet. The Last Glacial Maximum is generally placed later, broadly after c. 26,500 calendar years ago, although ice-sheet growth was neither simple nor simultaneous in every region. Reconstructions show that the British–Irish Ice Sheet expanded in phases, with different sectors reaching their greatest extent at different times. Around the chronological neighbourhood of 31,888 BCE, Ireland stood within a changing glacial world: substantial ice existed in the wider north-west European region, but parts of Ireland had at earlier points in MIS 3 remained free of overriding ice long enough for lakes, wetlands, plants and animals to leave traces.