Derryvree’s Pre-Glacial Wetlands
Archived: 27 September 2026
Abstract
Around 30,600 BCE, Ireland lay within a climatically unstable Late Pleistocene interval as the British-Irish Ice Sheet expanded. Lower seas linked it to Britain and Europe, though coasts and ice margins shifted. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, organic deposits between glacial tills record a cold, treeless wetland supporting hardy plants during an interval between ice advances. Castlepook Cave fauna indicates that reindeer, mammoth and predators could occupy or reach Ireland. A marked reindeer femur may indicate human butchery, but disturbed context and absent associated artefacts prevent confirmation of Palaeolithic settlement. Evidence therefore depicts a shifting ecological frontier, not a settled landscape.