Derryvree’s Long Thaw
Archived: 17 September 2026
31,462 BCE is a notional date within the later Middle Midlandian, not a precisely datable Irish event. Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserves freshwater sediments between glacial tills, indicating a cold, treeless, sedge-rich wetland with liquid water and seasonal tundra conditions during an ice-free or ice-distal interval. Ireland’s ice margins varied regionally before the later Last Glacial Maximum. Cave fauna, especially at Castlepook, records mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, predators and Arctic species, showing ecological links with north-western Europe. A possibly tool-marked reindeer bone suggests, but does not confirm, early human visits. No evidence supports settlement, polities, farming or culture; evidence is fragmentary.