Maguiresbridge Plant Bed
Archived: 16 September 2026
31,522 BCE is a modern label within the climatically unstable Late Pleistocene, not a datable Irish event. At Derryvree near Maguiresbridge, Fermanagh, organic sediments between glacial tills indicate a cold, ice-free interval, dated broadly to 34,950–29,750 BCE. Pollen and insects reveal treeless, wet tundra or muskeg. Castlepook Cave in Cork preserves MIS 3 fauna, including reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, bears and hyenas, although its mixed deposits cannot prove coexistence. A scored reindeer femur may record stone-tool butchery, suggesting fleeting Upper Palaeolithic human presence. No associated settlement evidence exists; Ireland remained a fragmented, changing landscape before the later major ice-sheet expansion.