Logainm is a new website containing a database of the placenames of Ireland. The site comes in an English version or a Gaeilge version and you can switch between both quite easily. The purpose of the site is to make available to the public Irish place names that have been officially approved by the Placenames Branch, and these names can be searched either through Irish or through English. If you simply want the correct translation for a particular placename, you can do a search on the homepage. If there is more than one place with the same name, you will be given all the possibilities and you can select which one applies to you.

If you want to do some research about the placenames in your locality, you can either click your county on the map on the homepage or you can use the dropdown box, also on the homepage. When you get to your county you have the option of finding out about the county under any of the following headings: baronies, electoral districts, parishes, townlands, rivers, bays, hills, promontories, bridges, waterfalls, features, population centres, lakes, islands and archipelagos, post offices, monuments, mountains/mountain ranges, streets, strands. If, for example, you wish to search about the parish in which your school is located, you click parishes and then click your local parish. You may then wish to find out about the townlands in the parish so you can click townlands. You can then click on any of the individual townlands in your locality. You will then be given the name of the townland, the name in Irish (if it has been officially verified), the hierarchy of the townland (i.e. the county, the barony, the parish, the townland). If there are any archival records pertaining to the name of the place they can also be viewed. These are scans of original documents citing the names of the place. In the cases of counties Waterford, Galway and Donegal, sound recordings of some of the placenames are available in both Irish and English and these give the official pronunciations. It is intended that in the future sound recordings will be made of all the other counties on a phased basis over the coming years.

This website should prove to be an invaluable resource to schools and teachers. The site will be an excellent reference point when researching local history. The site is really easy to use, well laid out and should be a site to be bookmarked to dip in and out of again and again. The site can be accessed at:

http://www.logainm.ie/