Derryvree Beneath the Drumlin
Archived: 19 September 2026
Around 31,200 BCE, Ireland’s history can be reconstructed only through uncertain archaeological and environmental evidence. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater sediments between glacial tills, dated broadly to 36,900–31,700 calibrated years BP, showing an ice-free but severe tundra wetland before later ice-sheet expansion. Mosses, sedges, aquatic plants and sparse shrubs occupied cold, treeless ground. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, records a long span of Ice Age fauna, including reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, bears and hyenas, though not as one contemporary community. A possibly tool-marked reindeer bone suggests early human presence, but cannot establish occupation. Evidence depicts a locally varied, intermittently habitable landscape.