Jarrow Colliery at Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, Ireland, is an important historic fossil vertebrate site. Fish and early tetrapods were originally discovered there in 1864, in Pennsylvanian shales immediately above the Jarrow Coal (Coolburn Coal Formation; Langsettian regional substage = Westphalian A). Until recently the fauna had been largely neglected, partly because many of the specimens are preserved as bituminous residues with indistinct outlines, which makes their preparation and study difficult. Here we describe all the available lungfish specimens for the first time. They represent a new taxon, Sagenodus hibernicus sp. nov., characterised by pterygoid tooth plates with up to six widely spaced radiating ridges which typically lack teeth, and a broad median furrow on the palatal surface of the parasphenoid stem. Sagenodus is the longest lived and most widely distributed Paleozoic lungfish genus. It first appears in the late Mississippian of Scotland and is last recorded in the late Lower Permian of Germany and the USA. Many species were named in the nineteenth century, but only seven are here thought to be valid. A review of the pattern of skull roofing bones of Sagenodus found that it had a single X-bone above the operculum and between the X-bone and the C-bone is a compound KLM-bone, as in Ctenodus , Tranodis and Uronemus . Phylogenetic analysis of the Dipnoi incorporating data from the present study and the recent redescription of Sagenodus from the British Carboniferous, found that the four key Carboniferous taxa were placed above all Devonian taxa in crown-ward order: Ctenodus , Uronemus , Sagenodus and Conchopoma .

Abstract: A colourised photographic portrait of Sir Richard John Griffith (1784–1878) dating from 1870 has been recently donated to the Geological Society of London. It shows the sitter in a typical pose surrounded by items of geological interest, including his Wollaston Medal and a geological map published in 1853. This is a rare and hitherto undocumented portrait of this important Irish public servant and geoscientist, and it and the various components depicted are described and discussed here.

Abstract: Sir Richard John Griffith was the acknowledged ‘father of Irish geology’ and his fossil collection was without doubt the single most valuable and important Irish palaeontological collection to be assembled by any individual in the nineteenth century. Being one of the earliest collections to be used for systematic descriptions of Paleozoic fossils it held the type material for over five hundred species and twenty-eight genera that were new to science. The original work on the collection was by Frederick McCoy who produced two volumes describing the collection in 1844 and 1846. Most surviving specimens are in the National Museum of Ireland – Natural History, with other important holdings in the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge, and Trinity College Dublin.

Abstract: In the second decade of the 1800s Richard John Griffith was preparing a geological map of Ireland. This was to finally be published in 1838 on a small scale with a larger quarter-inch map appearing in the following year. Recently, a water-coloured manuscript geological map of Ireland has been located in the George Bellas Greenough collection of the Geological Society of London. It represents a collaborative trans-Irish Sea effort between Griffith and Greenough to display Ireland’s geological structure, and probably dates from 1814. On a copy of Alexander Taylor’s 1793 map of Ireland Greenough provided marginal notes, delineated some geological boundaries with particular attention paid to County Donegal, and provided the names of nine lithological types in no apparent stratigraphic order. He then sent the otherwise blank map to Griffith, who applied the watercolour wash to show the distribution of those lithologies, before he returned the map to London. This manuscript geological map of Ireland may pre-date that attributed to Alexander Nimmo, which dates from no later than 1822.

Abstract: Glandore Mine, County Cork is the type locality for the uncommon lead–iron sulfate phosphate mineral corkite, the only mineral named after an Irish county. Electron microprobe analyses of thirteen ‘corkite’ samples revealed the closely related mineral kintoreite. One single spot analysis had molar Ba > Pb, which would make this a new mineral species: the barium analogue of corkite. This study also mineralogically characterises the Mn ores from Glandore Mine to species level, finding that they belong mostly to the cryptomelane–hollandite series. Other rare secondary minerals include cacoxenite and strengite, plus five minerals new to Ireland: chalcosiderite, churchite-Y, delafossite, kidwellite, and the aforementioned kintoreite. The Glandore Mn deposit results from a series of mineralising events that lasted from the early Upper Devonian until possibly as late as the Palaeogene.

Abstract: We present the first provenance study of glacial clasts from the offshore northwest Irish continental shelf to support regional, Devensian, ice flow paths from Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Seven clasts retrieved from seabed cores have been examined using a range of analytical methods to determine their bedrock provenance. Hand specimen description, thin section petrography, biostratigraphy and geochemistry have all proven valuable in making reliable identifications. The identification of a clast of arkosic, bioclastic conglomerate, from the mid-shelf core CE08–12, containing archaediscid foraminifera and the calcareous algae Koninckopora tenuiramosa , suggest this rock was sourced from the Carboniferous (Lower Viséan) Ballyshannon Limestone Formation; however, because this bedrock type is widespread onshore, and probably offshore, it provides little additional constraint on ice flow paths interpreted from geomorphological studies. A clast of syenitic orthogneiss from the outer shelf Malin Sea core CE08–28, is consistent with derivation from the Proterozoic Rhinns Complex exposed on the island of Inishtrahull. This clast identification supports movement of material from east to west, most likely related to Northern Irish and/or Scottish ice-flows and agrees with terrestrial and marine geomorphological evidence.

Abstract: Jarrow Colliery at Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, Ireland, is an important historic fossil vertebrate site. Fish and early tetrapods were originally discovered there in 1864, in Pennsylvanian shales immediately above the Jarrow Coal (Coolburn Coal Formation; Langsettian regional substage = Westphalian A). Until recently the fauna had been largely neglected, partly because many of the specimens are preserved as bituminous residues with indistinct outlines, which makes their preparation and study difficult. Here we describe all the available lungfish specimens for the first time. They represent a new taxon, Sagenodus hibernicus sp. nov. , characterised by pterygoid tooth plates with up to six widely spaced radiating ridges which typically lack teeth, and a broad median furrow on the palatal surface of the parasphenoid stem. Sagenodus is the longest lived and most widely distributed Paleozoic lungfish genus. It first appears in the late Mississippian of Scotland and is last recorded in the late Lower Permian of Germany and the USA. Many species were named in the nineteenth century, but only seven are here thought to be valid. A review of the pattern of skull roofing bones of Sagenodus found that it had a single X-bone above the operculum and between the X-bone and the C-bone is a compound KLM-bone, as in Ctenodus , Tranodis and Uronemus . Phylogenetic analysis of the Dipnoi incorporating data from the present study and the recent redescription of Sagenodus from the British Carboniferous, found that the four key Carboniferous taxa were placed above all Devonian taxa in crown-ward order: Ctenodus, Uronemus, Sagenodus and Conchopoma .

Abstract: Specimens of the dermal denticles of the chondrichthyan Listracanthus hystrix are recorded for the first time from the Carboniferous of Ireland. Additionally, a Petrodus -like denticle is also noted; specimens of this particular taxon are often found associated with Listracanthus in other areas. The samples described herein were recovered from the base of the Clare Shale Formation, County Clare, Ireland, and are most likely of Serpukhovian (Upper Mississippian) age. The characteristic dermal denticles of Listracanthus have never been illustrated from Ireland before, with only two other questionable previous records known. This new record adds to the growing diversity of fossil fish known from the Carboniferous of County Clare.

Abstract: The outcrop of the Castle Espie Limestone Formation, in the northwest corner of Strangford Lough, County Down, is poorly documented, with conflicting accounts of the overall stratigraphy of the Castle Espie Group. A survey of the foreshore from Castle Espie south-eastwards to Mahee Island reveals several limestone boulder-fields adjacent to areas with distinctive sandstone and siltstone clasts. Termed the Castle Espie Sandstone Formation, these clastics lie beneath the limestone and are divisible into two lithologically distinct units: the Paddy's Point Siltstone Member, dominated by unfossiliferous red siltstones, mudstones and fine sandstones, and the succeeding Horse Island Sandstone Member, characterised by coarser sandstones with abundant bioturbation and development of palaeosols. Boundaries are sharply defined between each of the lithostratigraphic units within the Castle Espie Group. The distribution of the limestone boulder fields, and the associated areas of sandstone debris, suggests that the Castle Espie Group outcrop extends, at shallow depth, south-eastwards to the eastern tip of Mahee Island and possibly beyond. Long-distance glacial transport of these Carboniferous lithologies from similar facies in the Ballycastle area, more than 80km further to the north, can be discounted.

Abstract: Core holes have demonstrated that the anomalous limestone erratics of the Bantry area of west Cork were derived by ice plucking of local in-situ deposits. The boulders had been deposited during the Mississippian into basinal sediments proximal to, or within, a fault zone trending along the south coast of Bantry Bay. Samples were collected from all the known occurrences of limestone erratics and from Geological Survey Ireland core hole GSI 99-4. A micropalaeontological and petrological study was carried out on all the samples. Evidence is presented that a carbonate platform was present over Sheep's Head, and an area to the south, from Ivorian to Brigantian time.