Doneraile’s Reindeer Trace
Archived: 9 September 2026
Abstract
Around 31,859 BCE, Ireland lay within the climatically unstable Marine Isotope Stage 3 of the last Ice Age, although conditions and ice extent varied regionally. Freshwater deposits at Derryvree, County Fermanagh, preserve evidence of cold, open, wet tundra-like terrain, while other deposits remain fragmentary and difficult to date. Castlepook Cave, County Cork, yielded reindeer, mammoth, giant deer, bear and hyaena remains, demonstrating intermittent animal use of southern Ireland. Re-dating has complicated their chronology. A marked reindeer femur may indicate human butchery about 33,000 years ago, but lacks excavation context. No established Palaeolithic settlement, tools, hearths or social history is known.