The Derryvree Muskeg
Archived: 7 October 2026
Abstract
Thirty thousand years BCE is an imprecise modern label for a later Pleistocene interval. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater silts between two glacial tills record a temporary ice-free basin, dated broadly to 34,950–29,750 BCE. Fossils indicate treeless, periglacial tundra with grasses, sedges, juniper, mosses, wetland plants and shallow water, before renewed ice advance. The site demonstrates local rather than island-wide conditions amid a dynamic British–Irish Ice Sheet. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves diverse Ice Age animal remains, but not a single contemporary fauna. No secure human settlement is known; a possibly cut-marked reindeer bone may indicate brief human presence there.