County Clare


County Clare, located on the east coast is the place with the oldest known evidence of human activity in Ireland. It was found in the Alice and Gwendoline Cave near Edenvale House. The patella of a bear, which was subject to butchering close to the time of death, has been dated to the Paleolithic era (~10,500 BC). This bear bone was discovered in 1903 during an archaeological excavation, but it was not studied for over 100 years. Finally Dr Marion Dowd of IT Sligo and Dr Ruth Carden the National Museum decided to examine it and published their results 2017 in Quaternary Science Reviews (QSR).

Clare has numerous caves, located at the karst area The Burren.