Derryvree’s Calcareous Pools
Archived: 29 September 2026
At the date of 30,493 BCE, Ireland’s evidence records environments rather than events. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater deposits between tills, showing an interval of cold, treeless wet tundra between glacial episodes. Radiocarbon dating places it broadly within Marine Isotope Stage 3, not at a precise calendar year. Pools, sedges, mosses, herbs and insects indicate active periglacial wetlands. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves diverse Ice Age fauna, including mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, bear and hyaena, accumulated over time. A cut-marked reindeer bone suggests possible human carcass processing, but proves neither settlement nor population. Growing ice transformed and obscured these landscapes.