Derryvree’s Fossil Bogbean
Archived: 10 September 2026
Labelled 31,840 BCE, this period in Ireland belongs broadly to the climatically variable later Marine Isotope Stage 3, not to a recoverable historical year. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater silts between glacial tills, indicating an ice-free interval of cold, treeless, waterlogged tundra with bogbean, mosses, sedges and other plants. Cave finds in southern Ireland show Ice-Age fauna including mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, bears, Arctic foxes and hyaenas, though their dates and contexts vary. Possible human evidence remains inconclusive. Later glaciation transformed and erased much evidence, leaving environmental records rather than evidence of settlement, politics, economy or culture by people locally.