Seasonal icon that is deer to our hearts

THE robin is the bird most associated with the Christmas season and, I suppose, if you had to pick a mammal you’d have to go for the reindeer.

Reindeer, of course, aren’t found wild in Ireland – but this wasn’t always the case.

At one time large herds of this medium-sized deer roamed our countryside. The experts don’t agree on when they became extinct. Some sources suggest they survived into historical times but it seems a lot more likely that they died out some time before this, possibly 8000 to 9000 years ago as a result of the warmer climate that followed the end of the last Ice Age.