Derryvree’s Wind-Scoured Pools
Archived: 17 September 2026
Around 31,518 BCE, Ireland cannot be described through annual historical events, but environmental evidence illuminates a broad Late Pleistocene interval. The Derryvree deposit in County Fermanagh, preserved beneath later glacial till, records cold, open periglacial wetlands with pools, sedges, mosses, grasses and sparse low vegetation. Castlepook Cave in County Cork yielded mammals including mammoth, reindeer, giant deer, hyaena, wolves and lemmings, indicating shifting cold-stage habitats. A marked reindeer bone may represent Ireland’s earliest human activity, though evidence remains inconclusive. No political or social history is recoverable. Increasing glaciation later buried and disturbed these fragile traces across the island's varied landscapes.