Derryvree’s Freshwater Interlude
Archived: 16 September 2026
31,524 BCE is an imprecise modern label for a Late Pleistocene MIS 3 interval, not a recoverable Irish event. Ireland’s sparse evidence, often disturbed by later glaciation, nevertheless indicates fluctuating cold environments before the Last Glacial Maximum. At Derryvree, Fermanagh, freshwater sediments between tills preserve wetland plants, including mountain avens and bogbean, showing locally ice-free, open ground. Castlepook Cave, Cork, contains remains of reindeer, mammoth, predators and other cold-adapted fauna, accumulated across lengthy periods. A cut-marked reindeer bone may indicate fleeting Upper Palaeolithic human activity, but cannot prove settlement. The period is chiefly reconstructed through fragmented environmental and faunal evidence.