In the last two million years during the Ice Age the climate has been either very cold with ice sheets and glaciers, or warmer when Mammoth, Giant Irish Deer and Brown Bears roamed the countryside. The last ice melted 10,000 years ago and man arrived in Ireland 5,500 years ago.

By the Tertiary Period (60 million years ago) the continents and oceans had almost reached their present-day distribution (map below). The North Atlantic Ocean was opening with Europe moving away from Greenland. Volcanic activity will soon produce the Antrim basalts and the Giant's Causeway and Iceland. India, which moved northwards throughout the Tertiary, has nearly collided with Asia, and Australia has just broken away from Antarctica.

click on the prehistoric scenes