Did Ireland ever have snakes? On this Saint Patrick's Day, I was pondering on this thought: It's a common belief that Saint Patrick rid Ireland of snakes \- by chasing them into the sea. It's true that Ireland doesn't have native snakes. But snakes are renown for being cold blooded and Ireland is renown for being cold - making them incompatible (I would have thought). It's likely that Ireland never had snakes to begin with. Is there any physical evidence that Ireland ever had snakes?

**It's likely that Ireland never had snakes.**

This article by national Geographic says that there is no evidence of them having ever been there.

> Monaghan, who has trawled through vast collections of fossil and other records of Irish animals, has found no evidence of snakes ever existing in Ireland.

The most likely explanation is that Ireland has been cut off from the mainland since the last ice age, when it would have been too cold for them to exist. As the climate warmed, snakes were unable to migrate to Ireland as they did to Britain.