All the major antiquarian book dealers here have now issued their autumn catalogues and they make for fascinating reading. The long-established Davidson Books of Ballynahinch, Co Down, for example, features almost 600 items in the company's latest issue, all of Irish interest. Among the curiosities are a series of railway share certificates issued by the Dublin and Drogheda Railway Company in February 1842 (£45).

The more valuable volumes include an 1851 second edition of William Digby Seymour's How to Employ Capital in Western Ireland, intended to awaken interest in that part of the country as a field for agricultural and manufacturing enterprise in the aftermath of the famine (£275), and a long run of Irish Historical Studies edited by Professors R D Edwards and T W Moody between 1938 and 1976 (£750).

But there are many less expensive items as well, such as a first edition of Sean O'Faolain's The Story of Ireland (£10). All prices quoted for these works are in sterling and Davidson Books can be contacted by telephoning 048-97562502.

In Dublin, De Burca Rare Books has also produced a new catalogue of more than 700 items. Local genealogy is well-covered by such works as Sir Michael O'Dwyer's 1933 book The O'Dwyers of Kilmananagh: The History of an Irish Sept which examines the author's Tipperary family from the seventh to the 17th centuries (£125), and Mayo-born John O'Hart's self-explanatory Irish Pedigrees; or the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation, published in two volumes in Dublin in 1887 (£395).

A copy of Speeches of Thomas Francis Meagher 1846-1848 edited by Arthur Griffith and bearing the latter's signature in both Irish and English is priced at £375, while a rare copy of A Collection of the Several Acts Relating to Game published in Dublin by the Crown printers in 1829 costs £485. Among the less expensive works here are a first edition F S L Lyons's 1971 Ireland Since the Famine bearing the late Liam de Paor's signature (£35) and Andree Sheehy Skeffinton's Life of Owen Sheehy Skeffington (£15). De Burca Books can be contacted at 01-2882159.

A new addition to the list of dealers in this field is Healy Rare Books of Galway which has recently issued its first catalogue; the first 250 of its 1,100 entries are devoted to Irish art and artists and book illustrators. Among the rarer items is a copy of Thomas Bodkin's 1932 Hugh Lane and His Pictures commissioned by the Irish government in a limited edition of 400; priced at £450, this one bears the book plate of Lord Harlech.

Even rarer is a copy of Goethe's Faust published in 1920 with illustrations by Harry Clarke; bound in half blue calf and with marbled boards, it is priced at £900. One of Jack B Yeats's books for children, A Little Fleet, is priced at £425.

There are less expensive items also: a second edition of Lady Gregory's A Book of Saints and Wonders for £25; F S L Lyons's biography of John Dillon for £30; and Lennox Robinson's 1920 Golden Treasury of Irish Verse for £20. Healy Rare Books can be contacted at 091-529980.