Derryvree’s Mosses and Sedges
Archived: 5 October 2026
Around 30,250 BCE, Ireland lay within the climatically unstable Late Pleistocene, not a datable historical year. Expanding ice, lower sea levels and regional contrasts shaped an intermittently ice-free landscape. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater deposits between glacial tills preserve mosses, sedges, insects and other evidence of cold, open wetland conditions before renewed glaciation. Southern cave deposits, especially Castlepook, record diverse Ice Age fauna, including reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, bear, wolf and hyaena, accumulated over extended periods. A possibly tool-marked reindeer bone suggests, but does not prove, human visitation. No secure settlement, institutions, beliefs or continuous human occupation are known today.