I graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a primary degree in geology and worked for a year with a Dublin based geological consultancy company.

I then did a one year taught Masters course in hydrogeology in University College London before rejoining the Dublin based consultancy as a hydrogeologist. After three years I joined Ballygowan Ltd as the wellfield manager. After five years I left Ballygowan to start up my own consultancy business.

Hydrogeology is a varied discipline. One needs to understand geology, hydrology, geotechnical engineering, geophysics and hydrochemistry.

A water supply project would have the following phases :

• Desk study reviewing geology, hydrology and hydrogeology
• Geophysical surveys to identify drill targets
• Manage and supervise the drilling of exploration wells, monitoring wells and production wells
• Pumping tests on the production wells to determine safe yields and long term yields of the wells and the wellfield
• Managing all infrastructural engineering works for the pump, electrics, and pipework

Within the quarry industry a lot of my work is calculating pumping needs at the planning stage, managing inflows, assessing pumping needs, designing settlement ponds, sizing storm water drainage networks, discharge licences and EIS' for planning applications.

All in all it is a varied and interesting career combining geology with geophysics, hydrology, engineering and hydrochemistry.