Maguirebridge’s Buried Wetland
Archived: 14 September 2026
Although 31,799 BCE is an artificial precise label, it denotes later Marine Isotope Stage 3, when parts of Ireland were ice-free before the Last Glacial Maximum. At Derryvree near Maguiresbridge, freshwater silts sealed between glacial tills, radiocarbon dated broadly to 36,900–31,700 calibrated years BP, reveal cold open tundra, wetlands and periglacial conditions. Southern caves preserve remains of mammoth, reindeer, giant deer and predators, though mixed deposits cannot provide a single-time census. A possibly tool-marked Castlepook reindeer bone suggests an early human visit, not settlement. Subsequent British–Irish Ice Sheet expansion transformed and obscured these fragile prehistoric landscapes over the following millennia.