The riddle of how Ireland got its mammals

QUIS enim, verbi gratia, lupos cervos, et sylvaticos porcos, et vulpes,taxones, et lepusculos, et sesquivolos in Hiberniam deveheret?

I can’t find out who wrote that but it seems to have been a monk about 1,400 years ago. But it’s still a good question to which we have only partial answers. It translates roughly as “who was it who really brought to Ireland wolves, deer, forest pigs, foxes, badgers, little hares and tiny squirrels?”

Some of our mammal species almost certainly survived the last ice age in warm refuges in the southwest. These include the Irish hare, the stoat and possibly the red deer. Others found their way here when things started to warm up about 10,000 years ago.