Derryvree’s Water-Milfoil Basin
Archived: 18 September 2026
Abstract
Around 31,241 BCE, Ireland was a cold, fluctuating Late Pleistocene landscape, not a historical society with known peoples or events. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, freshwater silts between glacial tills preserve evidence of an interval between ice advances. Water-milfoil, bogbean, sedges, mosses, dwarf willow and insects indicate a wet, open tundra basin shaped by frost, pools and short summers. Elsewhere, cave remains show that cold-stage animals, including reindeer, mammoth and hyaena, reached Ireland at various times. Possible early human evidence remains disputed. Changing ice sheets, low sea levels and altered coastlines created varied conditions, while later glaciation sealed this ecological archive.