Search

This thesis explores the education policies of Thomas Davis. On the eve of the Great Famine Ireland was economically impoverished and politically dependent. The Irish people had a subservient mentality, were mainly uneducated and were unaware of their potential. He believed that education would develop a self-reliant, self-sufficient people; it would create a new generation of leaders and citizens necessary to transform Ireland into a prosperous, independent nation. This thesis explores his education philosophy which was political in orientation; he called for reform of university education so that it would educate leaders who were knowledgeable, patriotic and responsible. He formulated a curriculum which consisted of knowledge that would have direct use and application in public life; his curriculum included moral philosophy, oratory, philological studies and history. His contribution to the debate on the Queens Colleges bill, 1845, is explored including his public disagreement with Daniel O’Connell on the principle of multi-denominational education. This work also examines his policies on learning methodologies and teaching methods. It provides details of his thoughts on learning by experience, by observation, book learning and learning in the home. It focuses on the deficiencies evident in the system of teaching and learning that operated in Trinity College Dublin and it provides an analysis of his preferred method of instruction: Lyceum teaching. This thesis also explores his national curriculum in history and Irish culture which was designed to forge a sense of national identity, to win support for repeal and to develop the principle of nationality. He formulated a national curriculum to counteract the absence of national knowledge in the state schools, to provide the people with a positive self-image and ultimately to empower them to reclaim Ireland and to develop it. Davis knew the power of education and he used it as an instrument of political and social change.

Normal faults often comprise arrays of fault segments. The boundaries between adjacent fault segments, relay zones and relay ramps can be of crucial importance to fluid migration pathways across and along faults and for across-fault reservoir juxtaposition. However, despite the increased number of studies of faults in high quality 3D seismic data, the three dimensional geometric or kinematic properties of relay zones or the controls on their 3D geometry are still unclear. This contribution investigates the characteristics of three dimensional segmentation based on an extensive collection of normal faults and relay zones in different geological settings. Our analysis shows that relay zones most often develop by bifurcation from a single fault surface but can also arise from the formation of segments which are disconnected in 3D from their inception. Relay zones generally occur between fault segments that step in the dip or strike direction, and intermediate oblique relay zones are less frequent. When combined together, these different geometries can form a complex spectrum of fault segmentation, whose characteristics can be related to underlying geological controls, such as the mechanical heterogeneity of the faulted sequence and the influence of the basement structure