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Geotechnical Society of Ireland
Biennial Named Lecture
Fintan Buggy, Chairman GSI
AGM 23 April 2015
Proposed Amendments to GSI Statutes
Clause 7 Meetings. Additional sub clauses shall be added as follows:
5.
The Committee shall arrange every two years for an Honorary Lecture to be given by a
candidate to be selected by the Committee, normally in April coincident with the AGM.
6.
The candidate shall be an engineer, geologist or scientist who has made a significant
contribution to the field of geotechnical engineering or related science and who has either
worked in Ireland, is Irish by birth or of Irish descent or has contributed to a major project or
research activity in Ireland.
7.
The Committee may confer upon the candidate a memorial medal or other commemorative
gift to be funded from GSI in recognition of the candidates achievements.
8.
The Biennial Lecture shall be named after a prominent Irish engineer, geologist or scientist
who has made a historical contribution to the theory or practice of geotechnical engineering
or a related science. The selection of the name given to the Biennial Lecture shall be by
vote at an AGM. The Committee shall approve a minimum of two candidate names for
consideration by the members at the AGM. Approval of the name at an AGM shall be by a
simple majority of members present.
John Neville, MIEI, MRIA (c1813 – 1889)
Born County Limerick 1813.
Education and Training in engineering - little is known. Father was architect, worked on Shannon Navigation
Athlone1836 – 38 and as a road contractor 1838 - 40.
Appointed Louth County Surveyor in 1840, resigned in1886 due to ill health.
Elected MRIA 1844; FRGSI; MICEI 1845; Council member & vice-president 1864.
Neville supervised construction of county road system and in 1847 temporarily employed 6,400 people on
famine relief schemes. He designed Aclint Bridge 1842; St. Dominick’s bridge 1863 & St. Mary’s Bridge,
Drogheda 1863 - 68; and Obelisk Bridge, Oldbridge across River Boyne 1868 - 69. Enforced the
reconstruction of two railway bridges and alteration to several others on Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway
1840s. Dredging, training walls, and graving dock Dundalk 1864 - 69.
Responsible for design of Louth County Gaol, Dundalk 1853, Neville also had a thriving architectural practice:
Martin’s Wine Stores Dundalk; private homes Shanlis House 1858, Dowdstown House and Cardistown House
1865; and five convents for Sisters of Mercy 1850 – 59, where both his daughters were members.
Publications include papers on water pressures on cofferdams 1840; forces acting on earth retaining walls
1845 & 1847; road cross sections 1846; hydraulic tables 1853 (reprinted in 1860 & 1875) and a
hydrodynamics pamphlet in 1858.
Married with two daughters and three sons.
John Neville, MIEI, MRIA (c1813 – 1889)
Prof. Eamon Hanrahan, Ph D., D Sc.,
MIEI (1917 – 2012)
Born Limerick City 1917.
Obtained BE in Civil Engineering UCD 1939
Worked in England in 1940s
ME 1946; Ph D 1954; D Sc 1983 from UCD. Retired in 1987.
Developed research into geotechnical engineering at UCD from 1950s.
Introduced first post graduate course in soil mechanics in Ireland in1955.
Primary research areas were in peat / soft soils but other interests were
glacial tills; tunnelling and pressures in silos.
Published over 30 papers in major journals / conferences between 1952 and
1994 including Transactions of Institute of Civil Engineers of Ireland,
Geotechnique, ASCE JGE, ICSMFE & ECSMGE, Int’l Peat Symposia, An
Foras Forbartha.
Married with three children.
Prof. Eamon Hanrahan, Ph D., D Sc.,
MIEI (1917 – 2012)
Primary research achievements were in the characterisation and
fundamental behaviour of peat.
In Geotechnique, 1954 concerning index properties, shear strength,
permeability, compressibility and rate of consolidation of peat.
In Geotechnique, 1964 Hanrahan reports a case history investigation into
the partial failure of a road in County Offally reconstructed in 1953, founded
on 7.5m deep peat. Paper covers the effects of preloading and lightweight fill
using peat bales and a comparison of predicted and long term observed
deformations.
In ASCE JGE 1981, the same case history and updated field data was
reanalysed using the eg ek method that Hanrahan developed during the late
1960s, first published in detail at the Roscoe Symposium, Cambridge in
1971 and later in his text book “The geotechnics of real materials: the eg ek
method” by Elsevier in 1985.
The eg ek method was not widely adopted for general use with soft soils, but
remains a valid theoretical approach which claims to overcome several
limitations of classical consolidation theory.