Flora of Ireland - History of The Flora: After The Pleistocene

History of The Flora: After The Pleistocene

Ice-sheets covered most of Ireland until 13,000 years ago when the Holocene began. The majority of Ireland's flora and fauna has only returned as the ice sheets retreated and sea level rose accompanied by post-glacial rebound when 10,000 years ago the climate began to warm. At this time there was a land bridge connecting Wales and the east coast of Ireland since sea levels were over 100 metres lower than they are today (water being frozen into the ice caps covering northern Asia and North America). Plants and animals were able to cross this land-bridge until about 7,500 years ago, when it was finally covered by the rising sea level as warming continued.

Mesolithic hunters entered Ireland around 8000 BC beginning human occupation and from the Neolithic landscape was progressively altered by agriculture, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries. Aside from the habitat alteration new species were introduced deliberately or accidentally.The archaeologist Emmet Byrnes and botanist Declan Little, Woodlands of Ireland give a history of woodlands in Ireland.