Derryvree’s Clubmoss Waters
Archived: 25 September 2026
At approximately 30,679 BCE, Ireland lay within the fluctuating cold conditions of Marine Isotope Stage 3, not a historically datable year. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater sediments between glacial tills, indicating an ice-free interlude with pools, wetlands and treeless tundra vegetation, including clubmoss, mosses and cold-adapted herbs. Its radiocarbon age encompasses this date. Cave finds elsewhere indicate intermittent populations of mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, predators and other cold-stage animals, but not a single contemporaneous fauna. No secure evidence establishes human settlement, society or activity; a modified reindeer bone suggests only unproven Upper Palaeolithic presence. Later glaciation preserved this environmental record.