The 2-km deep Athboy Borehole (143912) together with the lower part of boreholes EP30 and N915 form a standard type section for strata of Dinantian (Courceyan to Asbian) age in west Co. Meath. Above a thin basal red-bed siliciclastic sequence, the marine Courceyan shelf succession is almost 600 m thick. It comprises the Liscartan, Meath, and Moathill Formations of the Navan Group and the Slane Castle Formation of the succeeding Boyne Group. The shallow-water limestones include micrites, oolites, and sandy bioclastic packstones and grainstones with subordinate skeletal wackestones and shales. Lateral facies changes from north to south in the Navan area suggest deepening across a shelf towards a depocentre further to the south around Trim.The deeper-water Waulsortian Limestones of late Courceyan to Chadian age (Feltrim Formation, ca. 213 m thick) form a series of five sheet-like mudbanks, interbedded with generally thin units of nodular crinoidal limestones and shales. The mudbanks are formed of bryozoan-rich peloidal wackestones and lime-mudstones with phase C and D components. Rare soft-sediment breccias occur at the bottom and top of banks.The succeeding Fingal Group commences with a thin interval (3-20 m) of black shales, laminated packstones, and micritic limestones of Chadian age, the Tober Colleen Formation. This is followed by the Lucan Formation (Chadian to Asbian) predominantly of laminated and graded calciturbidites, laminated sandstones, cherts, and black shales, which is over 1300 m thick. Ten sedimentary units have been informally defined, based on lithofacies and facies associations. The oldest unit, the Tara Member,. is characterized by proximal debris-flow breccia deposits and nodular mudstones. A thick bioturbated micrite and shale unit (Ardmulchan Member) in the middle of the formation is overlain directly by a coarse oolitic and crinoidal grainstone unit (Beauparc Member). Near the top of the formation is a distinctive unit of coarse-grained laminated sandstones and shales (Athboy Member). The highest rocks in the Borehole are clean thickly-bedded limestones of the Asbian Naul Formation (>90 m thick). The youngest Dinantian strata in the area, the Brigantian Loughshinny Formation, marks a return to shale-dominant basin sedimentation.The significance of this work lies in the fact that the Athboy borehole is the longest continuously cored borehole in the Carboniferous of Ireland and provides a continuous sedimentary and biostratigraphic record for the northern part of the Dublin Basin. Foraminifera1 biozones (CE-Cf6) have been recognized in this and in borehole N915, and Stage boundaries identified, which can be applied throughout the Basin. The sedimentary record for the Lucan Formation indicates four tectonic pulses during the Visean, in the late Chadianlearly Arundian, mid-Arundian, Holkerian, and late Holkerian/early Asbian.

In the Dublin Basin a Courceyan ramp phase of sedimentation was followed in the Chadian by tectonic break-up of the basin into distinct shallow-water platforms, on which production of carbonate sediments continued in considerable volume, and 'deep' basinal areas in which it ceased. Progradation of the platforms across these basinal areas was limited, and mainly confined to the dip-slope of hanging wall blocks; progradation across fault scarps was rare. In the Shannon Trough basement-fault control was evident in the distribution and migration patterns of volcanic centres in the Chadian to Arundian, but despite this, ramp sedimentation occurred throughout the Dinantian, evolving into a purely constructional large platform by late Dinantian time. There was no break-up of the basin as in the case of the Dublin Basin.The reason for the contrasting behaviour of the two basins is related to the rate of upwards movement of extensional faults relative to sedimentation rates. In the Dublin Basin these faults penetrated to the palaeosurface to form scarps by the late Chadian, and this topography survived into the Brigantian. In the Shannon Trough these faults failed to surface, but deep basement structures controlled the distribution of Dinantian volcanic centres which lie on a series of ENE-trending lineaments. These lineaments, which parallel the axis of the Shannon Trough, almost certainly mark the traces of active down-to-basin faults that controlled its half-graben structure.The basement rocks of the two basins are clearly of a different nature; the Dublin Basin is floored by basement of a much more heterogeneous nature than the Shannon Trough, the former lying south and the latter north of the putative Iapetus Suture line.

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Rocks of Courceyan to Brigantian age are exposed in the Limerick Syncline. However, a complete Courceyan succession is known only from two boreholes which correlate closely, both faunally and lithologically, with a standard Limerick Province succession in the Pallaskenry Borehole on the Shannon estuary. This is followed by a thick Waulsortian sequence (the newly defined Limerick Limestone Formation) of late Courceyan to early Chadian age and overlying cherty micrites (the newly defined Lough Gur Formation) of early to late Chadian age, whose top is younger to the east. The Lough Gur Formation is succeeded by lavas and tuffs of the Knockroe Volcanic Formation whose upper part is interbedded with and overlain by shallow water oolites and algal-rich bioclastic limestones of the Herbertstown Limestone Formation. The higher part of the latter is in turn interbedded with lavas and tuffs of the Knockseefin Volcanic Formation. The Herbertstown Limestone has rich and diverse coral/brachiopod and foraminifera1 assemblages of late Chadian to Asbian age. Its base is markedly diachronous: late Chadian in the west of the syncline and Holkerian in the east. Both the base and top of the Knockroe Volcanic Formation are thus shown to be markedly diachronous and volcanism extends from the Chadian to early Asbian. The Knockseefin Volcanic Formation is entirely of Asbian age. The highest limestones (Dromkeen Limestone Formation) have a diagnostic late Asbianxarly Brigantian fauna and are overstepped by mid-Namurian shales.

Two late Viséan (Asbian-early Brigantian) buildup complexes occur in the Kingscourt Outlier in Ireland, near the top of the Mullaghfin Formation, a shallow-water, grainstone unit. These massive buildups at Ardagh and Cregg accumulated on the margins of a carbonate platform bordering a deep-water basin. Both have a buildup facies of fine-grained, peloid-rich, algal lime mudstones and wackestones, interbedded with coarser grained intraclastic, skeletal packstones and grainstones (interbuildup facies). Microbial structures are well developed in the buildup facies, principally domal stromatolites, thrombolites and oncoidal fabrics of cyanophytes ( Ortonella and Girvanella ) with encrusting formainifers ( Aphralysia and Textrataxis ). Algal structures include rhodoliths ( Solenopora ) and fragments of Ungdarella and stacheiids, with less abundant chlorophytes ( Koninckopora ); in the interbuildup facies, Koninckopora is more abundant. Near the top of the Ardagh buildup is an unusual development of phylloid algal boundstone composed of the possible ancestral coralline red alga Archaeolithophyllum . This boundstone also contains encrusting bryozoans and foraminifers, and directly overlies abundant Brigantian in situ fasciculate rugose corals. This upper unit appears to be associated with a rapid shallowing event, which stimulated the development of a wave-resistant rigid framework. Laterally, bedded intraclastic skeletal packstones and grainstones, with thin interbedded clays and shales, pass into the lower part of the massive Ardagh buildup, but appear to onlap and drape the upper part of the buildup. Buildup clasts occur within the interbuildup facies and proximal flank facies, indicating synsedimentary cementation. Late Viséan buildups of the Ardagh type highlight an important period of diversification of colonial rugose corals and calcareous algae associated with the development of widespread shallow-water carbonate platforms worldwide. This allowed the emergence of new algal groups, particularly the red algae ( Archaeolithophyllum and Ungdarella ) and the palaeoberesellid green algae ( Kamaenella ), which subsequently dominated Upper Carboniferous wave-resistant bioherms.