Oxford Pocket Irish Dictionary (Breandan O Croinin)

(based on 2 reviews) Format: Paperback Direction: Irish-English and English-Irish Pronunciation of words: Provided Seriousness: Light reference List price: US$ 9.25 Publisher: Oxford University Press Year: 2000 ISBN: 0-19-860254-5 Incorrect or missing information? Let us know.

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Dictionary Overview

Contains a grammar section, verb tables. Advertises itself to contain 100,000 words and translations, and a pronunciation for each of the three main dialects (Munster, Connacht, Ulster) for each entry. This publication may now be out of print.

Visitor reviews (Add your review)

Disappointingly unreliable
David, New Jersey, U.S.A.. 23 Sep 2006.

This dictionary was essentially my only reference source for my first few months of studying Irish. Before I had been using it for long, I began to notice misspellings, misdirected references and definitions, and especially layout errors that made for some rather nonsensical entries (such as words running together in the verb conjugation charts in the middle of the dictionary). Although the information you find in the dictionary is probably correct 99% of the time, there are enough errors to keep you guessing about whether the particular item you're looking up is part of that erroneous 1%, and that essentially defeats the point of using the dictionary in the first place - a dictionary should be a reference that you can have confidence in, especially coming from an otherwise reputable name like Oxford. There are some nice features in the dictionary, such as colored headwords and easy-to-read type (albeit a little small), but they can't make up for the lack of accuracy.

Essentially, I would try to talk anyone out of buying this dictionary. A decent online dictionary, of which there are several, can provide better reliability at no cost, and the purchase price would be better spent on another small print dictionary such as Foclóir Scoile.

I expected more from Oxford
Redwolf, California, USA. 7 Sep 2006.

Having been raised with the Oxford English Dictionary as the standard of excellence, I thought the same high standards would apply to any Oxford dictionary. Sadly, editorial quality control is sadly lacking in this one. Typos abound, in the grammar section as well as the word entries. For some reason, this is the dictionary American bookstores are most likely to stock (maybe because, as I did, they trust the Oxford name). It's better by far than nothing (I would choose one over relying on an on-line English-Irish/Irish-English dictionary, for example), but it's better to order a Collins, or even pay the shipping on something like Foclóir Póca, rather than rely entirely on the Oxford.

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