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Is it true there are no snakes in Ireland?

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If this is true, does anybody know a scientific explanation for this?

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  1. We have no snakes but we have lizards.  We have no moles or toads either.  We have to hope that no one introduces them.  Magpies, grey squirrels and some species of deer were introduced here by the English and all have had a seriously negative effect on the native fauna.

    The ice age answer given in other answers is correct.  And of course people keep snakes as pets/


  2. YES! It's true.

  3. The 'no snakes' story around St Patrick is more symbolic than to do with the actual driving out of reptiles.  The snake represents paganism or the Devil, (as in the snake tempting Adam and Eve, or look at some old statues in the churches and you will see the Saint standing on a snake, to represent over coming the devil or evil).

    But having said that as far as I am aware there are no snakes in Ireland, but I'd say that's more to do with the fact we're an Island, than St Patrick.

  4. Mmmm, I know a snake in Ireland.

  5. It all has to do with the ice-age and what animals were left after the search for warmer climate

    lots of animals never made it back to Ireland when the ice melted after the ice-age, animals native to britain and the rest of western europe e.g moles, sea otters (ireland has thousands of river otters but no sea otters), river shrimp.  The likes of the rabbit and the brown rat were introduced to ireland from england, again proving my point.

    New Zealand had no snakes either until human arrived and introduced them, a country very similiar to ireland and divided by water from its nearest neighbour

    It is not true to say there are no snakes in ireland today, lot of people have snakes as pets, there are snakes in irish zoos as well

  6. well they are no poisonous snakes

  7. no thers not thank god!!!!snakes are rotten!!

  8. No snakes native to Ireland, that's true. Don't know why. They are an island.....maybe none ever made it over (other than pets).

  9. Yes it is true there are no snakes in Ireland. Legend has it that St Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland somtime in the 5th century, herding them all into the sea with his staff. Reality is that when snakes started to evole, probaby in the proto southern continent Gondwana Land, Ireland was under the sea. Ireland probably then rose and split from mainland Europe before the snakes got there. England/Wales only has one speices of adder, one grass snake and a slow worm that is really a legless lizard rather than a real snake, that may have made it to tyhe northern tip of the proto euro continent before the island split from the rest of Europe .

  10. People keep snakes as pets nowadays but snakes dont live in the wild....this is probably because of the cold weather!!!

    St.Patrick was supposed to have driven all the snakes out of ireland in the 5th Century....but these snakes really stood for pagans!!

  11. No, there aren't. I suppose it's because it's an island and the climate is not good for snakes. So there are no original species and species from other areas can't migrate.

  12. Yes, there are no snakes in Ireland.

    The scientific explanation for this is that snakes were not fast enough to get over the land bridge that existed between that is now Britain and Ireland and Britain and France. They made it to Britain, because you do find adders there, but as Ireland was a bit further away, they didn't get quite that far.

    The Saint Patrick story is a myth.

  13. No, there are no snakes living in the wild in Ireland, people do keep them as pets though.

    This is the reason why, the St Patrick stuff is a legend obviously and didn't happen.

    The most recent ice age began about three million years ago and continues into the present. Between warm periods like the current climate, glaciers have advanced and retreated more than 20 times, often completely blanketing Ireland with ice. Snakes, being cold-blooded animals, simply aren't able to survive in areas where the ground is frozen year round. Ireland thawed out for the last time only 15,000 years ago. Since then, 12 miles of icy-cold water in the Northern Channel have separated Ireland from neighboring Scotland, which does harbor a few species of snakes. There are no snakes in Ireland for the simple reason that they can't get there.

  14. no american ones only irish ones

    lol dont know
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