Derryvree’s Sedge-And-Beetle Archive
Archived: 17 September 2026
31,418 BCE denotes a broad MIS 3 interval, not a recoverable Irish year. At Derryvree, County Fermanagh, organic sediments between glacial tills record a locally ice-free, treeless wetland of sedges, mosses, bogbean and cold-adapted insects, dated broadly within the relevant period. Comparable northern deposits confirm changing conditions between ice advances. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves fragmentary remains of mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, hyena and other fauna, demonstrating intermittent connections with continental Europe. A possibly cut-marked reindeer femur may indicate human activity, but lacks associated artefacts or occupation evidence. Later glaciation destroyed much evidence, leaving cautious environmental rather than historical reconstruction.