Gasaite/ar na hE/ireann : Gazetteer of Ireland. prepared by The
Placenames Branch of the Ordnance Survey. Dublin?: 1989
ISBN 0707600766
A Dictionary of Irish Place-Names. by Adrian Room. Appletree
Press, Belfast: 1986, 1988. ISBN 086281202X
I bought them both a couple years ago in Dublin. The former in the
government publications office (or something like that) for #5.00 and the
latter in Eason's for #5.95.
The Gazetteer is subtitled "Names of centres of population and physical
features" and lists all population centres that have or have had a post
office in the past 20 years, and most major physical features of the land.
The names appear in both English and Irish, with pronunciations for the
latter, and the National Grid coordinates for each place (which was the
selling feature for me).
The Dictionary gives the names of many places with their translation, and
a brief description of the location and/or literal translation of the name.
Two brief appendices list elements of placenames in the Irish languages
(prefixes and suffixes) and a decent bibliography listing twenty-odd
works for further research.
Best of luck with your searches.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eric Harding (eharding@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca)
Somewhere in Canada, likely Toronto at the moment...