Its neighbouring areas are Sandymount to the north and Blackrock to the south, while along the coast to the south-east is the small district of Williamstown.
Historically known in English as Ballyboother the name "Booterstown" is an anglicised form of the original Irish name Baile an Bhóthair, meaning "The Town of the Road". In its original Irish form it shares the same name as Batterstown in County Meath, as well as Ballinvoher in Kilkenny, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Longford and Mayo. Booterstown lies along an ancient route once known as Slíghe Chualann, which connected the residence of the High King of Ireland at Tara with his outlying lands in Cualann. Cualann is the ancient name for the area of land stretching towards Bray. The Congregation of the Irish Christian Brothers had their headquarters at St. Helen's, Booterstown from 1925 to 1988. St. Helen's was built in 1760 for Thomas Cooley, MP and was known originally as Seamount. It was extensively refurbished a century later while in the ownership of Viscount Gough, Field Marshal of the British Army, whose wife Marie Frances opened the gardens to the public. The house is now a hotel of The Radisson Group. Booterstown still retains its link with the name Tara, as the Tara Towers hotel was built there in the 1970s on the Merrion Road, next to the historical Bellevue Merrion Cemetery. The Tara Towers hotel was demolished in 2019.
Hugh Carleton, 1st Viscount Carleton, was an eminent judge, and at one time an owner of Willow Park.
William Downes, 1st Baron Downes, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, had a house called Merville in Booterstown, and died there in 1826.
Maziere Brady, Lord Chancellor of Ireland for almost 20 years was a native of Booterstown. His family owned what is now Willow Park School.
Richard Robert Madden lived at 4 Booterstown Avenue and on Vernon Terrace. He was an Irish doctor, writer, abolitionist and historian of the United Irishmen.
Francis Elrington Ball, who lived at Booterstown House at one time, was an Irish author and legal historian, best known for his works The Judges in Ireland 1221–1921 and A history of the county of Dublin.
Eoin MacNeill, who lived on South Hill Avenue, Booterstown, was an Irish scholar, nationalist, revolutionary and politician.
John McCormack lived in Booterstown for a short while, in the house named "Glena", overlooking the sea opposite the Booterstown Marsh. He died there in 1945.
Kevin O'Higgins lived in a house called "Dunamase" and was the Minister for Justice in the Government of the Irish Free State. He was assassinated on the Booterstown end of Cross Avenue on his way to mass at the local parish church, Church of the Assumption, on 10 July 1927 by members of the IRA. It is believed that he was assassinated for ordering the execution of seventy-seven republicans during his tenure.
Seán MacBride, Irish government minister and prominent international politician, who lived in Booterstown. In his early life, while he was a member of the IRA, he was charged with the murder of Kevin O'Higgins in 1927.
