Again this is something I wasn't expecting - when is a ditch a ditch ? Sometimes it seems to be a water channel of some kind and at other times it seems to be an earthen bank, a hedge or a wall or both. The Irish words I have found are - díog or claí - though there are others of course - claí cloiche, silteán, cladh, clais srl.
Here's the context - when he came to this quiet place he went inside the road ditch - nuair a tháinig sé go dtí an áit chiúin seo chuaigh sé isteach an ....? fál cois bóthair perhaps ?

- and that same night he stretched himself out behind a ditch to sleep, cold and hungry.

Along a standard 'public road' are there standard ditches ? and do the smaller irrigation ditches that you would find away from the road and in the fields have a different name ?

Yes, a ditch can be a trench or a raised bank.
I think a trench, or channel beside the road is the most common meaning. It will depend on context.

https://www.focloir.ie/ga/dictionary/ei/ditch

The words ditch and dike/dyke have a common root (ME diche), cognate with the German word Deich, now used in German for a dike or levee (along with the word Damm, as in Kurfürstendamm), but spelled as Teich in older writings, although Teich is now used for a pond (especially one created by a dam or dike!), while Graben is used for a ditch. In English, the word which is cognate with Graben evolved into the more specialized term "grave". The etymological development probably reflects the fact that dikes, dams, and earthen battlements were often created using the dirt dug up from a neighboring ditch, so the name for one could transfer to the other.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Here's another one I'm not sure of. Obviously 'well off' would usually mean (relatively) wealthy, but in this context I'm wondering whether in Irish English it might mean - living without a care.
He was well off until his wife died.

Bhí sé ina shá den saol - or - Bhí sé saor ó churam...... go dtí go bhfuair a bhean chéile bás.

(PS hors sujet et fadó ó shin, I used to work in Amsterdam and I can tell you that Dijkstraat was a place to avoid at that time and a canal in the Centrum is called een gracht which in fact means a moat (or une douve as we say in French) There's a saying - never get into street fight in Venice (or in Amsterdam for that matter).

1 - "in a holt": I suppose it would hardly be a typo for "hole" - which would be too modern an expression. Anyway the dictionary gives various ways to say 'in a hole/difficult situation.

2 - "that was the price of him": It's Hiberno-Irish. My parents used the expression often enough, meaning "It serves you right" - as you've discovered. I talked to a native speaker in her 60s recently, and while she was familiar with that expression, she'd never heard "a chonách sin ort".

3 - "the Hare-Woman": It wouldn't be "Bean an Ghiorria". That would mean either "The Hare's Woman/Wife" or "The Hare Woman" (no hyphen) in the sense of a woman associated in some way with a specific hare - having it as a pet, say, or feeding it, or always talking about it, etc. "The Hare-Woman", in the sense you mean, of a woman who's also a hare or part hare - well, the answer's in your own post, in the title of the story on 'dúchas.ie', which I've just read. 'An Táilliúir ina Ghiorria' means 'The tailor who was a hare' or 'The tailor as a hare' = 'The Hare-Tailor'. So in this particular context you could say 'An Bhean ina Giorria'. It wouldn't work for every context though. (The full form would be 'An Táilliúir a bhí ina Ghiorria').

Go raibh maith agat, a chara.

And there's this - And the next minute, the two eyes got round in his head with the dint of surprise.

Agus láithreach ina dhiaidh sin/Agus chéad rud eile, d'éirigh cruinn a dhá shúil ina cheann le tréan an t-iontas.

Could I say - d'éiríodh - instead of - d'éirigh ?

I realise that there are also other expressions such as - éisteach agus leathadh súl ort le hiontas - stán sé agus na súile ar leathadh aige .... srl

I've since found that the first meaning of a holt is the hole or the burrow of an otter - i mbrocach an dobharchú ? (the word holt as such isn't on Teanglann),
as for its figurative meaning - finding himself trapped and in a situation that he can't get out of, could I say - cuireadh sé i sáinn - or - rugadh i sáinn air ?

I knew "holt" was the residence of some wild creature - I was thinking a stoat or weasel - but apparently it's also a small wood, though that meaning is now archaic.

- 'an chéad rud eile'
- 'd'éirigh a dhá shúil cruinn' would be the normal order. While
grammatically correct, I doubt whether this would be a good
translation in this particular context.
- 'd'éiríodh' is the habitual past. Why would you use it here?
- 'le tréan an t-iontas'> 'le tréan iontais' or simply 'le hiontas'.
- 'cuireadh i sáinn é' - not 'sé', or simply 'tá
sé i sáinn/san fhaopach'.

Go raibh maith agat