Doneraile’s Cave Fauna
Archived: 24 September 2026
Around 30,753 BCE, Ireland experienced fluctuating MIS 3 Ice-Age conditions, not a precisely datable historical year. Lower sea levels intermittently facilitated animal movement from Britain and Europe, although routes remain uncertain. Castlepook Cave near Doneraile preserves Ireland’s richest Pleistocene fauna, including mammoth, giant deer, reindeer, bears, wolves, Arctic foxes, lemmings and spotted hyaenas. Its disturbed, long-lived deposits represent changing cold open landscapes rather than a single community. Revised radiocarbon dates confirm mammals in southern Ireland before and around glacial maximum conditions. A marked reindeer femur may indicate early butchery, but cannot prove settlement, permanent population or wider human activity there.