Faults and fractures are a critical store and pathway for groundwater in Ireland’s limestone bedrock aquifers either directly as conductive structures or indirectly as the locus for the development of karst conduits. From the quantitative analysis of post-Devonian faults and fractures in a range of lithological sequences, this report describes the principal characteristics of Cenozoic strike-slip faults and joints, the youngest and the most intrinsically conductive fractures within Irish bedrock. Analysis of these structures in more than 120 outcrop, quarry, mine and cave locations in a range of bedrock types, provides a basis for: (1) definition of quantitative models for their depth dependency, lithological control, scaling systematics and links to preexisting structure, (2) conceptualisation of their impact on groundwater behaviour, and (3) estimation of groundwater flow parameters. The quantitative models provide constraints on fracture-controlled flow connectivity. Commonly observed decreases in sustainable flows and water strike interceptions with depth are attributed to increasing confinement and decreasing fracture connectivity and dissolution. Faults and joints have quite different end member geometries, with faults having strongly heterogeneous scale-independent properties and joints more often showing scale-dependent stratabound properties. The highest and most sustainable groundwater flows are usually associated with the complexity of structure of Cenozoic faults and of preexisting Carboniferous structures (on which conductive fracturing localises), enhanced by karstification and strongly jointed limestone bedrock particularly in the near-surface. Increased groundwater flow is promoted within bedded, rather than massive (i.e. unbedded), limestone sequences, characterised by bedding-parallel fractures and karst connecting otherwise subvertical fractures and subvertical wells.

Explicit expressions for the vector fields of specific discharge and scalar fields of stream functions and piezometric heads in a Darcian steady-state essentially two-dimensional (2-D) flow through a three-component composite representing a vertical or horizontal well with a gravel pack and annular skin are obtained and analysed. The refraction conditions along two concentric circles, which represent interfaces between three porous media of contrasting hydraulic conductivities, are exactly satisfied. Flow nets, isotachs, the locus of the stagnation point bounding the capture zone of the well, and functionals quantifying area-averaged hydraulic characteristics are found. The flow topology and drawdowns near the well illustrate that at small pumping rates a common concept of a purely radial 1-D flow can be superficially plausible but misleading.