The Maguiresbridge Interlude
Archived: 20 September 2026
31,066 BCE is a modern label within a broad Late Pleistocene range, not a recoverable Irish year. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater organic deposits between tills, indicating a locally ice-free, treeless, waterlogged tundra interval, though not conditions across Ireland. Crag Cave speleothems record alternating milder and colder MIS 3 phases as ice generally expanded. Castlepook Cave’s mixed, imperfectly recorded fauna, including reindeer, mammoth, giant deer and hyena, confirms episodic animal access. Lower seas altered connections with Britain and Europe. No securely dated human remains, artefacts, settlements or political history exist; Ireland’s evidence instead reveals climate, wetlands, fauna and advancing ice.