Cork Reindeer, Fermanagh Sedges
Archived: 19 September 2026
Abstract
Around the notional date of 31,125 BCE, Ireland was an unstable Ice Age landscape, not a documented human society. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater sediments between glacial tills, indicating cold, open wetlands with sedges, mosses, dwarf willow and aquatic plants during an ice-free interval. Other northern deposits confirm fluctuating local conditions. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, contains time-mixed remains of reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, hyaena and other cold-stage animals. A cut-marked reindeer bone may indicate Upper Palaeolithic human activity, but no settlement is proven. Lower seas did not guarantee easy routes; later glaciation obscured earlier evidence across much of the island.