Burke's Irish Family Records is a publication that can be found in some Genealogy Libraries. I believe issues of the publication are also available from the LDS family history library. The year that I have is the 1976 edition and I just found out it's quite rare. It covers the histories and genealogies of 514 Irish families from the earliest male ancestor to the present. There is often biographical information and it is quite detailed.
The abbreviations can be quite daunting but there is an index of these with explanations. Also there's a very good reference on how to read the genealogies. Patience will be your best asset when trying to get through this book. You can get lucky with this book though. You should take a look at it. Here's what it has on my O'Connell family for the intro to the Lineage:
"The early part of this account is based on the pedigree submitted by Count Daniel O'Connell to the Heralds of King Louis XVI of France and cannot now be authenticated beyond the 17th cent; the relationship of the various branches of the family during the Penal period is a matter of tradition and construction and is open to revision. According to reliable bardic tradition the O'Connells were lords of barony of Iveragh, SW Kerry from ca. 1200, after they had been driven into Kerry from co. Limerick by Norman invaders. From ca. middle of 14th century until 1650 they were Hereditary Constables of Ballycarbery Castle (nr the modern town of Cahirciveen) for their overlord, MacCarthy Mor, Gaelic ruler of SW Munster. In 1650 the Castle was dismantled and abandoned by order of Cromwellian Govt. The descent is traced from Aodh (Hugh) O'Connell, living 1337...."
See how detailed some of the entries can be? So much information!
This is what the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature says about this publication:
"Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland (Ist edn. 1899), a genealogical dictionary of Irish landowning families, published by the company established by John Burke (I787-1848), compiler of A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronage of the United Kingdom (1st edn. 1826). The sole criterion was ownership of 1,000 acres in Ireland. Most of the names listed belong to *ascendancy families, though not all were Protestant and not all were titled. Following the *Wyndham Land Act in 1903 the editors were forced to ask if there were still a landed gentry, as noted in the 1912 Preface. After a fourth edition in 1958 the work was reissued as Burke's Irish Family Records (1976), listing the descendants of `500 interesting dynasties', whether living in Ireland or settled abroad."
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