Derryvree’s Icebound Waters
Derryvree was not an Irish landscape of forests, fields or villages. The evidence indicates a periglacial setting: terrain shaped by severe cold, frost action and seasonally frozen ground, but not continuously smothered by glacier ice. Fresh water nevertheless existed locally. Fine sediment settled in a pool or sluggish watercourse, while wet ground developed at its margins. This was a small environmental refuge in a wider, difficult landscape, not proof that all of Ireland was similarly ice-free or hospitable.