This dissertation is based on the article "Covering groups with subgroups" of R. A. Bryce, V. Fedra and L. Serena, which characterize groups that admit a cover by five maximal irredundant subgroups with free core intersection. The intersection of an irredundant cover by n subgroups is known to have index bounded by a function of n, though in general the precise bound is not known. Here we confirm a claim of Tom...