Did you know that the reindeer was native to Northern Ireland at one time ?

Presenter Caroline Nolan and botanist Professor Valerie Hall visit Roddans Port to roll back the years to just after the great melt occurred at the end of the ice age.

A vast ice sheet still gripped much of Northern Europe and consequently sea levels were much lower than they are today.

This meant the narrower Irish sea would have been navigable for the reindeer to swim across to our land mass.

The coastline here at County Down would have been further out and there would have been drumlins with lakes in between where the sea bed is now.

But this was the temperate calm before one more icy storm, and another cold blast would have a devastating effect on these remarkable creatures.