The Old Red Sandstone basins of the North Atlantic borderlands provide a record of diverse dynamics in very different settings, related to the Variscan, Caledonian and Ellesmerian orogenies. This paper is a first attempt to review much new information on the basins, including information presented, for the first time, in this book. Five basin groupings are distinguished: (1) Scandinavian basins of, syn-to post-Scandian (Caledonian) age, formed on greatly thickened crust by extension or transtension (Western Norway, East Greenland, Spitsbergen); (2) NE Scotland, Orcadian Basin, mid Caledonian setting, formed by extension;(3) Scotland (Midland Valley) and related Irish basins, north of the Caledonian Iapetus Suture Zone, formed by extension; (4) southern Britain and Ireland, basins south of the Iapetus Suture Zone, related to collision of Eastern Avalonia with Laurentia, and Maritime Canada and the Catskills related to collision of Western Avalonia; these are load-induced flexural basins; (5) Southern margin of Eastern Avalonia, (Munster, South Wales, SW England), of Late Devonian age, extensional basins of various (Early to Late) Devonian ages.The Old Red Sandstone (ORS) of the lands bordering the North Atlantic Ocean ranges in age from mid-Silurian to Carboniferous time. It provides the fill of many basins, which range in location from the Appalachians at 40~ to Spitsbergen, at 80 ~ N, a distance of some 4500 km.The Old Red Sandstone has long been seen as a stratigraphic response to major Palaeozoic (Caledonian) mountain-building, and particularly as a late-or post-orogenic (molasse) magnafacies. However, the basin-forming mechanisms have not been reviewed recently enough to reflect new research into geodynamics. There is now much greater knowledge of the basins involved, and much new work has been performed on the orogens. One object of this paper is to provide a modern overview of the basins in general tectono-stratigraphic terms. The second object is to discuss the extent to which current ideas on basin geodynamics can be applied to the ORS of the North Atlantic region. In this, we attempt to specify (1) ORS basin kinematics, based on a review of published information on mainly fault and related fold structures that have been traditionally used to characterize kinematics, and (2) ORS basin dynamics, from available geohistory (subsidence) analyses and tectono-stratigraphic context of individual basins. Finally, in the discussion section, we attempt a synthesis of ORS basin geodynamics in relation to plate-scale and body forces related to the temporally and spatially overlapping Caledonian, Variscan and Ellesmerian Orogenies. First, we briefly review the principal basinforming mechanisms.