Rating: 
Summary: Long on Lists, Short on Help
Review: "Beyond Shannon and Sean" offers parents lists of Irish names not alphabetically but by category: Irish family names, saints' names, even names from James Joyce books. The names are all CAPITALIZED in long list, which is distracting.As other folks have indicated, there is little clue in pronunciation. Okay, so AOIDHGHEAN is an Irish saint's name. But male or female? The saint of what? And how in the world does one pronounce it? Not very helpful for the expecting parents looking for a name.
Rating:
Summary: Long on Lists, Short on Help
Review: "Beyond Shannon and Sean" offers parents lists of Irish names not alphabetically but by category: Irish family names, saints' names, even names from James Joyce books. The names are all CAPITALIZED in long list, which is distracting. As other folks have indicated, there is little clue in pronunciation. Okay, so AOIDHGHEAN is an Irish saint's name. But male or female? The saint of what? And how in the world does one pronounce it? Not very helpful for the expecting parents looking for a name.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and Frustrating!
Review: Having Irish ancestry and also being interested in names I bought this book when I saw it in an Irish book display in a bookstore while I was shopping on St. Patrick's Day a few years ago and it looked good and I thought now wouldn't this be an interesting book for my collection of Irish books and maybe I will find some nice Irish names for any future children but the book though maybe having an interesting title is actually disappointing when it comes to the reading of the content, there are a lot of names and hardly any pronunciations are given and the few that are I have been told are incorrect and that makes picking a nice unusual Irish name that isn't used alot in the US very difficult if you don't know what the proper pronunciation is, in fact I totally fell in love with the name Mairead but only got embarrassed when I found out from some people from Ireland and Scotland that the two pronunciations this book gives for Mairead including the May Read pronunciation are wrong and they told me that the correct pronunciation of Mairead actually rhymes with Parade and even though I now like the correct pronunciation I am still a little disappointed that the May Read pronunciation is incorrect but I still would have liked to not have gotten the wrong facts about the pronunciation and felt embarrassed. I hope to find an Irish name book that gives pronunciations and meanings of the names, I actually think every name book Irish or the ones that include all different kinds of names should include pronuncitions and phonetically spell them out like in a dictionary. I rate the book 2 stars but really would give it 2 1/2 stars because there are some things in the book I like including the lists of Irish Saint names but the lack of info and the incorrect pronunciations prevent me from giving it 3, 4 or 5 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Has Minor Flaws But I Love it Anyawy!
Review: I have Irish ancestry and I absolutely love Irish names and I bought this book and despite the lack of pronunciations and the few pronunciations they give being questionable I still love this book and all the cool catagories and lists that are so much fun to read and this is definitely my absolute favorite baby name book! I have found a lot of great boy and girl names that are so different then the typical popular names like Brian, Ryan, Kevin, Shannon, Kelly, Erin, etc, and I highly recommend this cool book! The book has very minor flaws but I love it anyway and give it five stars for everything that is right about this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Light naming
Review: If you like picking names by feel, apparent popularity, or general connotations, then this is a nice book for Irish names. If you like more details on pronunciation and history, you will need to look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: There was not enough assistance in pronunciation and meaning
Review: My wife and I enjoyed the book but found it to be extremely deficient in providing pronunciation and also in defining the meaning of each name. The book also seemed a bit disjointed. It did not follow well from one section to the next, with the same name often appearing in multiple sections.
Rating:
Summary: A bit of a disappointment
Review: The main reason that we bought this book was to find Irish names based on their meanings. Unfortunately, there are very few meanings of any of the names listed. If you are looking for an extensive list of Irish names but not interested in their meanings, then this is a good book for you. Otherwise I have come across many general name books that have much more complete lists of meanings along with the names.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, Yes, Helpful, No!
Review: This book is entertaining and makes a great conversation piece among my Irish relatives and friends but I have to be honest and admit that it's not very helpful or pratical with it's pronunciations or advice and I will be looking into buying some of the other Irish baby name books out there.
Rating:
Summary: Very useful despite minor flaws
Review: This book is much better than you would gather from reading the reviews. Although it's true, the pronunciations are not always correct, the book is an excellent source of interesting Irish names. There's also a section of names that are not used in Ireland for humans but which might appeal to people looking for an Irish-sounding name. The book also offers some historical perspectives not in other naming books. Since Irish is a tough language to pronounce merely by looking at Irish words, it might be a good idea to get a brief overview of the language before wading through the names. It'll help with pronunciation. If you can't be bothered (who has the time?!), just double-check a name you like with a more official Irish source. That's what I do & it's no big deal. I really like the way the book is organized and I enjoy the extra info so it's well worth the price I paid for it, despite its few flaws. This pair of authors has several other charming naming books. If you're a writer (or a pretender, like me), their little books are very handy.
Rating: 
Summary: Beyond Shannon and Sean: An Enlightened Guide to Irish Baby
Review: This book is terrible. It is hard to follow and the sequence is illogical. There is no section that simply lists names and meanings...everything is chopped up into silly little chapters. All in all, this book offers little new information. I got a better list of Irish names from a regular baby name book.
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