Shandon’s Grassland Interval
Archived: 1 October 2026
Thirty thousand four hundred and fourteen BCE is a modern chronological waypoint, not a precisely recoverable year. During Marine Isotope Stage 3, Ireland experienced unstable pre-Last Glacial Maximum conditions, with advancing and shifting ice, altered coastlines and low sea levels. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater organic sediments between glacial tills, demonstrating a temporary ice-free wetland supporting treeless arctic-alpine vegetation, insects and small animals. Cave faunas from Shandon and Castlepook indicate changing open habitats supporting mammoth, reindeer, horse, predators and cold-adapted species. A possibly tool-marked Castlepook reindeer bone may indicate brief human activity, but no securely dated Palaeolithic occupation is known.