Derryvree’s Ice-Sealed Interlude
Archived: 2 October 2026
Around 30,377 BCE, Ireland has no year-specific historical record; the date is best understood within MIS 3. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, organic sediments between glacial tills record an interval of shallow freshwater, wetland vegetation and treeless, cold open ground before renewed ice advance. Fossils indicate mosses, sedges, herbs, low shrubs and northern insects. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves remains of mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, predators and cold-stage fauna, accumulated over varied periods. A possibly tool-cut reindeer bone may indicate fleeting Upper Palaeolithic human activity, but not settlement. Increasing glaciation later culminated in near-total ice cover during the Last Glacial Maximum.