Derryvree’s Sealed Muskeg
Archived: 18 September 2026
Although 31,233 BCE cannot identify a specific Irish event, it falls within a Late Pleistocene interval represented by Derryvree, County Fermanagh. Organic freshwater sediments between glacial tills show an ice-free, treeless tundra muskeg, supporting sedges, mosses, insects and shallow pools amid cold. Radiocarbon dating provides a broad period, not annual precision. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves remains of reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, predators and fauna, though its chronology is complex. A possibly cut-marked reindeer bone may indicate early human carcass processing, but proves neither settlement nor population. Together, these records show a variable, biologically active Ireland affected by advancing ice.