Castlepook’s Ice-Age Fauna
Archived: 1 October 2026
30,421 BCE is a modern label rather than a datable Irish event. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves an ice-free interval between glacial tills, recording freshwater tundra with sedges, mosses, dwarf shrubs and aquatic plants. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, contains Ireland’s richest pre-Last Glacial Maximum fauna, including mammoth, reindeer, bear, wolf, Arctic fox, lemmings and spotted hyaena, accumulated over time. A possibly cut-marked reindeer femur may indicate Upper Palaeolithic butchery, but remains disputed and cannot prove settlement. Approaching the ice-sheet maximum, later glaciation eroded or buried much evidence. These sites reveal cold environments and ecological connections, rather than a recoverable human history.