Derryvree’s Interstadial Muskeg
Archived: 20 September 2026
Around 31,092 BCE, Ireland’s environment can be reconstructed only broadly, not as a dated historical event. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater organic sediments between glacial tills show that a locally ice-free wetland developed during Marine Isotope Stage 3. Pollen, plants and insects indicate cold, open periglacial terrain with sedges, mosses, pools and sparse shrubs. Climate and ice cover varied regionally. Cave fauna, especially at Castlepook, demonstrates intermittent presence of reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, hyaena and other mammals. A marked reindeer bone may indicate early humans, but settlement remains absent. Later glaciation destroyed much evidence, leaving human visits possible but unproven.