Origin of red deer revealed

FOR many years there’s been a debate, sometimes quite heated, about the origins of the red deer herd in the National Park outside Killarney.

It was generally accepted that all other red deer were imported in historical times, but that the Killarney herd was different and somehow more Irish. But how did they get there?

There were basically three theories. The first was that they were ancient Irish animals that had somehow managed to survive the last Ice Age in a warm refuge in Kerry. I found this theory quite convincing because of the other examples of so-called Lusitanian flora and fauna in Kerry — things like arbutus trees, natterjack toads and the Kerry slug. There’s also the fact that other mammals, notably the Irish hare, seem to have an unbroken lineage stretching back well into pre-glacial times.