Maguirebridge’s Three-Leaf Pool
Archived: 17 September 2026
31,444 BCE is not a recordable Irish year but falls within the climatically unstable Late Pleistocene. Deposits beneath a drumlin at Derryvree, County Fermanagh, reveal an ice-free interval containing freshwater sediments, mosses, sedges, aquatic plants, insects and pollen, indicating cold, largely treeless tundra wetland. Later ice buried and eroded much evidence. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, preserves cold-adapted fauna including mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, hyena and lemmings, though its deposits span episodes. A marked reindeer bone may indicate early human butchery, but remains unconfirmed. No secure contemporary settlement, tools, culture or institutions are known; the evidence instead documents a changing landscape.