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 lant food remains are a rare thing. Except for nuts and seeds, little ever survives over such a long period of time even under dry, sheltered conditions. Conditions which the river, sea and lake sides these people chose to live on do not provide. Aside from Hazelnut shells, a few Water-lily, Wild Pear and Crabapple seeds have been found. Which doesn't mean they only ate fruits, nuts and meat. There are many edible wild plants to be found near water sources, this doesn't take into account those plants that could have been foraged a few miles from the shore. Lets not forget that though for many modern westerners the thought of walking more than a few blocks is a chore, a mile can be covered in about 20 minutes at an easy pace.  There are some researches who feel that a foraging range of 2 hours walk from a "base camp" was typical, which in the case of river and lake sides takes you into a very different ecological environment. I'm including here a listing of currently available native edible native Irish plants that can be found in wet areas such as shores, marshes and near the sea. Most of the plants listed below are available only during the summer months. Since the bands were semi-nomadic and show signs of having storage facilities, roots, seeds and possibly leaves, could have been dried and stored for winter use. This listing is meant to give and example of what may have been found at that time and how it may have been used. At this time I do not have information on when these plants appeared only that they are native Irish species.
Leafy greens can be had from; Irish Meadowsweet, Water Purslane, Yellow Water Lily, Mare's Tail, Common Sedge, Marsh Ragwort, Marsh Thistle, Purple Loosetrife, Sneezewort, Water Pepper, and Sea Lettuce. Roots for cooking as a vegetable or drying and grinding into flour from; Clubrush, Reedmace, Silverweed. Seeds to be eaten like grain or ground into meal from; White Water-Lily and Lyme-grass. Some of these plants can also be used to make mats and containers or have medicinal properties. As I said, this is but a small sample. We, with our large supermarkets and our technological snobbism, tend to think our distant ancestors had a repetitious and boring diet. However, studies among recent foraging societies show that they utilize dozens more food items than we do. How many of us regularly choose from 6 to 15 types of fish and crustaceans, an equal number of bird and mammals (if you include the Continent), dozens of types of greens, roots, nuts, seeds, and fruit as our ancestors did? Apparently we don't, according to recent surveys, the average North American chooses from maybe two dozen food items on a regular basis. For the longest part of our collective history we foraged for our food, it is only for the last six to seven thousand years that agriculture and stock rearing has become a major occupation among members of our species. How differently we must have viewed ourselves and our place in the world when we weren't dependent on the vagaries of the weather to ensure a successful harvest. When we didn't have to perform rituals to ensure fruitfulness of the crops we had become dependant on. When we didn't wonder in dismay and anger at how we had caused offence to our Gods if the crops failed or the animals died or a flood or drought came and wiped out our fields. Our life was hard, yet for all its uncertainty we were still "a part of" the world, we had not yet begun to see ourselves as "other," as "apart from" an environment that we believed we could and must control to sustain ourselves.
Notes
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