Maguirebridge’s Buried Bogbean
Archived: 17 September 2026
Around 31,480 BCE, Ireland’s history is reconstructed from environmental evidence rather than records. At Derryvree near Maguiresbridge, Fermanagh, freshwater sediments trapped between glacial tills preserve pollen, mosses, insects and bogbean seeds, indicating treeless, tundra-like wetland during part of MIS 3. Radiocarbon dating places this landscape broadly between 36,900 and 31,700 calibrated years BP, not at a precise year. Southern caves reveal a varied cold-climate fauna, including mammoths, reindeer, lemmings, predators and giant deer. A cut-marked reindeer bone from Castlepook may indicate human butchery, but no securely dated settlement exists. Later ice advances destroyed evidence, leaving a regionally varied, uncertain picture.