Does Ireland Use Postcodes?

mr_angry

Aside from Dublin, does the rest of Ireland have a postcode system? I recently checked on a Komplett order to find my details had been amended to include 'D64' after Dundalk. To the best of my knowledge, we've never had a postcode system here in Dundalk, but I'm wondering if one has been recently implemented?

RuggieBear

not in any official sense....

altho there are a few spatial analyst companies who are trying to link every address in the country to a phone number and point on a map....addresslink by gamma is one that i know of....

Dr. Dre

Not that I know of, I usually just put N/A in the postcodes boxes for purchases on the net.

billy the squid

Cork has postcodes but no one uses them so it seems.

darkdreamangel

just dublin i think and thats only some parts

scribs

Follow the link to find out all you need to know about our postal system
Its a gripping Read

http://www.iol.ie/~discover/mail.htm


Enjoy

RuggieBear

this is an article from the Irish Indo from Jan 27 last year.....

AN POST will try to block any attempt by the Communications Regulator to introduce postcodes.


The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg), which has published a consultation paper, claims postcodes could help to reduce confusion and speed up the sorting of mail, as letters would be routed automatically once their postcodes had been scanned.


ComReg points out that every EU country apart from Ireland and Greece uses postcodes.


Direct-mail companies and the ESB are among the organisations that support postcodes. The electricity company claims they would give it more accurate information in emergencies.


An Post has rejected the plan, however, saying postcodes would be expensive and unnecessary in a country with such a small and scattered population. A spokesman for the company said its technology could read addresses in milliseconds, which far outweighed any advantages postcodes could bring.


An Post and Ordnance Survey Ireland have devised a "geo-direct system", containing 1.5 million addresses, that can pinpoint locations more accurately than postcodes can, he said.


In Dublin city, the postal districts from Dublin 1 to Dublin 24 represent sorting offices. This is as much of a system of postcodes as Ireland needs, according to the spokesman, who said An Post would be making a strong case against postcodes to ComReg.


Concerns have also been expressed by Irish-language scholars.


Udaras na Gaeltachta chairman Liam OCuinneagain said postcodes would dilute Ireland's "rich and unique" place names. "We have a policy of using county names and place names in the thousands of letters we send out every week, and postal codes or no postal codes we will continue to use that format."



Kathy Donaghy and Anita Guidera

billy the squid

Sounds to me like on Post are afraid of giving up their "jobs for life" in favour of automation.

Postcodes/Zip codes

In general, Postcodes are not required. The exception is Dublin and Cork city where a 1 or 2 digit zone number appears after the name of the city (eg Dublin 2). This number is shown after the street name (eg 25 Clare Street 2 = 25 Clare Street, Dublin 2).

see they do have them in Cork :P

bringitdown

Despite the lack of postcodes in Ireland and the obvious problems our wonderful place names impose I love the fact that a letter addressed to:

My Name
Co. Galway

Can still reach me.... granted I haven't a common surname but I have no doubt in other countries this would be RTS.

Gurgle

bringitdown wrote:

Despite the lack of postcodes in Ireland and the obvious problems our wonderful place names impose I love the fact that a letter addressed to:

My Name
Co. Galway

Can still reach me.... granted I haven't a common surname but I have no doubt in other countries this would be RTS.

Thats amazing!

Our postman is illiterate, we regularly get letters through the door addressed to different house numbers, different estates, occasionally different towns.

When something important fails to arrive, I have to go for a walk around knocking on doors to find out where my post was actually delivered.

Not that this would be fixed by a postcode.
A well trained chimp would solve the problem.

RuggieBear

billy the squid wrote:

Sounds to me like on Post are afraid of giving up their "jobs for life" in favour of automation.



see they do have them in Cork :P

You may well be right...but i worked (at a very low level) on that "geo-direct system" and it is much more accurate than postcodes...

still it wouldn't be that hard to implement post codes here...sure isn't there a perfect example of it in action in Scotland....big pop centres and then low pop density...

embee

My Dad is a postman. There are no postcodes. In fact, if there were, he reckons that there would be mass confusion and non-delivery of mail.

If the system works okay, why mess with it?

Victor

Aside from Dublin, does the rest of Ireland have a postcode system? I recently checked on a Komplett order to find my details had been amended to include 'D64' after Dundalk. To the best of my knowledge, we've never had a postcode system here in Dundalk, but I'm wondering if one has been recently implemented?

Possibly Komplett's courier's own system.

If asked for your postcode and they "insist" the advice is to use "XXXX".

jesus_thats_gre

embee wrote:

My Dad is a postman. There are no postcodes. In fact, if there were, he reckons that there would be mass confusion and non-delivery of mail.

If the system works okay, why mess with it?

What percentage of post going missing in this country?

Tiriel

billy the squid wrote:

Sounds to me like on Post are afraid of giving up their "jobs for life" in favour of automation.



see they do have them in Cork :P

what are they in Cork? :rolleyes:

elivsvonchiaing

embee wrote:

My Dad is a postman. There are no postcodes. In fact, if there were, he reckons that there would be mass confusion and non-delivery of mail.

If the system works okay, why mess with it?

'coz your dad is presumably Irish or here long enough to know the ropes and will eventually retire. This will not work in 20 years - it doesn't work now imho. There can be few countries left without postal/zip codes.

I think we don't have postal codes for many reasons- one is protectionism. There's no reason why someone from an unprouncible town in the Czech republic with reasonable English could not come here to work as a postman if there was a post-code system.

I do concede there would be confusion when implemented at first - but hell sweden changed from left-hand-drive to right-hand-drive overnight. It can be done. It would be progress.

Victor

Cork_girl wrote:

what are they in Cork? :rolleyes:

In the city only

North East - 1
North West - 3
South East - 2
South West - 4

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

I do concede there would be confusion when implemented at first - but hell sweden changed from left-hand-drive to right-hand-drive overnight.

Actually they did it during the day (so people don't forget when they got up in the morning). Would you have had them start on a phased first, first trucks and busses, then cars and vans and finally motorbikes and cyclists?

fragile

When providing my delivery details for some free IBM software evaluation CDs I gave the postcode of my old address in Berlin, as I am sick of these online forms complaining that I have to provide a postcode...feck off, I am Irish, I don't have one..

Anyway, when the CDs eventually arrived the forwarding stickers on them showed that they were originally mailed from the US, arrived in Germany, were forwarded to the UK and then forwarded to Ireland.

I now use N/A when asked for a postcode

sceptre

Victor wrote:

Would you have had them start on a phased first, first trucks and busses, then cars and vans and finally motorbikes and cyclists?

The shocking thing is that a few people swallowed that line from me lately after I fed them the "yeah, the government want us to switch to driving on the right just after they change the speed signs next year" story I just made up there and then when they were complaining about the smoking ban existing and Mata Harney still being in a job.

Must find less gullible people to troll IRL.

Moriarty

Coincedently enough there was a discussion about this on the IIU mailing list over the past month or so.

Read it here (offshoot of the 'Worst ecommerce site in Ireland' thread).

billy the squid

Cork_girl wrote:

what are they in Cork? :rolleyes:

ye i think there is Cork 1, 2 3, and 4

do they not have the postcode on the streetsigns in cork like they do in dublin.

Osku-82

No postcodes... That's really weird. Well I'm too confused with the system they use in London. That makes no sense. I wonder, too, what's the percentage of mail being lost in Ireland? I guess every postal worker must just be used to this...

Victor

Osku-82 wrote:

I wonder, too, what's the percentage of mail being lost in Ireland? I guess every postal worker must just be used to this...

I imagine it's not better or worse than other countries. In fact with full addresses, there is probably more information to work of than just an incorrect postcode.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Osku-82 wrote:

Well I'm too confused with the system they use in London.

Yeah me too, I had it explained to me very slowly and I pretended like I understood... but I really didn't.
The guy explaining it to me seemed to understand it though, but it was probably explained to him by someone better at explaining things. :rolleyes:

Gurgle

Doesn't the rest of the world use the full geographical address plus the postcode ?
So how could introducing postcodes here lead to stuff getting lost ?

leeroybrown

I had a credit card application turned down twice because of Irish addresses and an English applications office.

The first time the application came back marked as denied due to "No Postcode". The second time it came back denied due to "No House Number".

Ironically it turned out after consulting the house deeds that it had a number that was never used. "Mr. Leeroy Brown, Town, County" would have easily got to me without the extra town land, let alone adding a number.

Gurgle

leeroybrown wrote:

Ironically it turned out after consulting the house deeds that it had a number that was never used. "Mr. Leeroy Brown, Town, County" would have easily got to me without the extra town land, let alone adding a number.

When I'm ordering stuff from abroad, I always put in the postcode as '123456' and never have trouble with delivery.
Of course this stuff is delivered by couriers who would lose their jobs if they just dumped it into any old letter-box.

The postman has no such worry.

Boro

Funny story, but true.

Friend of mine sent a christmas card once to a mate of ours who lived in limerick. He didnt know the exact address, but he had been at the house. This guy was really surprised when he got his christmas card addressed :

Mr xxx xxxxxxxx,
3rd House behind the Parkway Shopping Center,
Limerick.

The postal system works

RuggieBear

Boro wrote:

Funny story, but true.

Friend of mine sent a christmas card once to a mate of ours who lived in limerick. He didnt know the exact address, but he had been at the house. This guy was really surprised when he got his christmas card addressed :

Mr xxx xxxxxxxx,
3rd House behind the Parkway Shopping Center,
Limerick.

The postal system works

We all know where your mate lives now!!!!! :eek:

mr_angry

RuggieBear wrote:

We all know where your mate lives now!!!!! :eek:

Pah. I doubt anyone's going to go to Limerick to hunt him down.

pickarooney

Gurgle wrote:

Doesn't the rest of the world use the full geographical address plus the postcode ?
So how could introducing postcodes here lead to stuff getting lost ?

It's fine as long as the postcode is correct, but if you have the correct address and the incorrect postcode it may well get lost or at least rerouted, as the sorting will be done based on the code.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a postman to know how to find addresses without a code, any more than it is to expect a taxi driver to know his way around a city. Then again, there are lots of addresses in townlands with no signposts, road names or numbers, which would take a bit of getting used to.

Kêrmêttê

Our old postman used to have a "route" for himself. We couldn't quite figure out what this was, but, our block of houses seemed to be the last stop of the day for him.
Any mail that he had overlooked that was still in his postbag used to get dumped into our letter box. The guy was too stupid to get it right, then too lazy to deliver the mail to the correct addressess when he found he'd got stuff left over.
My poor Dad was driven mental walking round the neighbourhood dropping off the miscellaneous mail to these random houses.
One day he lost it and went to the GPO and made a formal complaint. He wasn't the only one from our neighbourhood who did this btw.
Our mail was then checked from the sorting office every single morning for 6 months and some inspector initialled every individual letter with red pen before it went into the postmans delivery bag, (I'm not sure what the purpose of this was).
Still, stuff was going missing and being sent to incorrect addressess.
So, we ended up getting a new postman!
We are now usually getting the right mail... but it doesn't arrive til about 3pm in the afternoon...
Whatever happened to early morning post??!!

BTW, I live in the southside of Dublin... and when this mental looney of a postman was delivering to us we regularly got letters addressed to people in places like, Macroom, Cork City, Letterkenny, Sligo.
Surely the guy should have realised these were wrong and brought them back to the sorting office to be re-distributed??!!! :eek:

fozzle

Argh, postcodes drive me nuts, I can remember Irish addresses (usually) but if I've to send something to friends or family in England I've got to lookup the damn code every time.Our postal service in this country really isn't all that bad, and the wackier the address you use, the faster they seem to deliver stuff. I sent a postcard from Spain addressed to
*my aunt's name*
The house with the long driveway and the big trees
About 3 miles outside the north side of Thurles when you turn left at the Spar (it wasn't a spar)
Turles
Co Tipperary
Ireland

And she got it the same day as all the other ones I sent arrived. Except my parent's one, but they get post addressed to the wrong county (their post, mind you, just the addresses are wrong!)

embraer170

Can whinge about a lot in this country but the postal system really isn’t one of them. Often had mail addressed to me totally wrongly (wrong street, wrong town) arrive safely and reasonably quickly.

fjon

I think a lot of other countries could scrap post codes too. I have sent post abroad plenty of times without a postcode (I didn't really know they existed until I was around 15!) and they have all arrived.
I even sent one to:

*friend's name*
Stirling University Student Residence
UK

I have sent postcards/ letters to Italy, Germany, Austria and Australia, and everyone of them arrived without any problems.

Victor

In the UK "99 XX9 9XX" an address in the format can be complete and adequate, just make sure you don't get anything wrong.

sceptre

mr_angry wrote:

Pah. I doubt anyone's going to go to Limerick to hunt him down.

Hmmmm

elivsvonchiaing

...Sweden changing from driving on left to driving on right... (not what I said but you know what I meant)

Victor wrote:

they did it during the day (so people don't forget when they got up in the morning). Would you have had them start on a phased first, first trucks and busses, then cars and vans and finally motorbikes and cyclists?

Eh No :rolleyes: I would imagine an interval before the changeover only left-hand drive vehicles became available for purchase probably 2 - 3 years. I concede such a planning element makes "overnight" metaphoric, but semantically from a drivers perspective this is literally what happened.
{Elivs stops and sobs - "I've just slayed Victor's sarcastic creation!- sob!" - opens fridge gets beer - Glug - "Ahh whatever!" }

embee

In fairness, the postcode system would be markedly less successful in Ireland than it would be in the UK, for the simple reason that Ireland has a much larger percentage of its population living in rural areas.

My Dad has often told me of three different people, living on the same tiny country lane, who all have the same name, and he has devised a system where all three, by and large, receive all of their own mail and no one elses.

Say they are all called Patrick Murphy and they all live in Green Lane, Rathkean, Ardee, Co. Louth. Thats the middle of nowhere, its merely a tiny cluster of about 8 houses. How the hell does he decide? He actually does it based on the type of mail they receive, where the mail has come from, and in what envelopes. Were Ireland to get postcodes, that lane would be all the one postcode, so they really wouldnt work.

elivsvonchiaing

embee wrote:

Say they are all called Patrick Murphy and they all live in Green Lane, Rathkean, Ardee, Co. Louth. Thats the middle of nowhere, its merely a tiny cluster of about 8 houses. How the hell does he decide? He actually does it based on the type of mail they receive, where the mail has come from, and in what envelopes. Were Ireland to get postcodes, that lane would be all the one postcode, so they really wouldnt work.

Concede problems in rural areas... But he would still have the same information: the origin of the mail and the envelope + the "useless" in this case post-code. He would still know that Patrick Murphy (minister of the Eucharist) would be not be the appropriate recipient of a black parcel posted from Amsterdam with no originating company's logo on it. The "Catholic yearbook" with an publishers logo and address posted from Norwich - would probably seem the more likely choice.

The postcode could actually be useful if it was as exact as the UK assuming - holy patrick lived on the opposite side of the lane as god's-gift patrick.

embee

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

Concede problems in rural areas... But he would still have the same information: the origin of the mail and the envelope + the "useless" in this case post-code. He would still know that Patrick Murphy (minister of the Eucharist) would be not be the appropriate recipient of a black parcel posted from Amsterdam with no originating company's logo on it. The "Catholic yearbook" with an publishers logo and address posted from Norwich - would probably seem the more likely choice.

The postcode could actually be useful if it was as exact as the UK assuming - holy patrick lived on the opposite side of the lane as god's-gift patrick.

Thats grand when its clear cut people like "Patrick Murphy minister of the Eucharist", but in reality, its not that easy to guess. Its not like he gets three different letters that, just by looking at the envelope, he can 100% identify which Patrick Murphy they are for. He has had to make guesses initially. Now, after 25 or so years, he gets it right 99% of the time.

They still wouldnt work though.

elivsvonchiaing

Embee - I fail to see your point. Is it this: everthing as it was - now more information - he has to make guesses he has more information - and is this what confuses him? :eek: I do not see the logic of how this could work in suburbia without impacting on rural areas :eek:

I agree it may prove useless in rural lane-ways. However, I'll say this - since we as a country have been post-code-less for so long -we are technologically ready (just not culturally ready) for an information exchange of An Bord Pleanalla, OPW, An post - a galaxy of others... ok it would need group of TDs with balls to implement it - but we could have a post-code system that uniquely identifies an address that's older than we'll say 2 years - a suffix could indicate to a postman - your warm - though may not be built yet! You should bury your anti-post-code prejudice in the past!

All that said I think the legality of exact address is what puts people off the post-code thing.

I live in terror of brown envelopes with no money in them with a harp on them Diagio use white envelopes -hint. The RCs.

Its not so bad when you get "we got your payment of .."- it's more "our auditor's will be in attendance on your premises on ... "aw jesus - root canal anyday in preference!


I don't use the address I live for tax purposes. Cos too much post has gone missing. I'd rather have bad news up front. I instead use my parent's address.

We need a postcode. I get stuff for a guy in Skerries regularly - sure he get's mine - similar address names. We need a postcode. that's a full-stop period!

embee

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

Embee ....... You should bury your anti-post-code prejudice in the past!

Christ on a bike!

I didn't realise I was oppressing your RIGHT to have a postcode! OMG, I am so sorry! :rolleyes:

dead air

post codes would probably just cost a lot to implement at this stage, I'd reckon that an post just wouldn't welcome that cost right now.

You can see how they would be handy in the more urban areas for locating places. A simple post code system would be useful for people unfamilar with places in our country and wouldn't just benefit post office workers but many people in other services, for example... I worked in directory enquires for a while with callers from both the UK and Ireland. For UK searchs, I could ask for a post code if I didn't recognise the town or village name and I could tell quite accurately where its located. Now, with irish listings, callers ring in with vague townland names telling you the person lives 15 minutes from tobercurry. fecking nightmare.

elivsvonchiaing

embee wrote:

Christ on a bike!

I didn't realise I was oppressing your RIGHT to have a postcode! OMG, I am so sorry! :rolleyes:

I don't have the RIGHT to a postcode I agree. Again: Suggestion: Post Code - phased - in - your da can ignore it - long phase in - 20-30 years - it will be needed - it WILL happen!

Coulndn't give a fish's tit anyhow as I won't be back here for 18 years! Cya all!
Bye....


Aw ****! The mass-reflux-refusion cowl has failed on my ship. Does anyone know how to fix one of these: Manufacturer:Adams Sytems, Adamski, M87a (lover's leap)...

OK i'm beginning to get the picture here... Do you earthlings demand that I have a haircut like your David Bowie?

embee

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

I don't have the RIGHT to a postcode I agree. Again: Suggestion: Post Code - phased - in - your da can ignore it - long phase in - 20-30 years - it will be needed - it WILL happen!

Coulndn't give a fish's tit anyhow as I won't be back here for 18 years! Cya all!
Bye....


Aw ****! The mass-reflux-refusion cowl has failed on my ship. Does anyone know how to fix one of these: Manufacturer:Adams Sytems, Adamski, M87a (lover's leap)...

OK i'm beginning to get the picture here... Do you earthlings demand that I have a haircut like your David Bowie?

What?!

Trojan

Don't mess with 78701.

boo4842

Ireland is behind on a lot of things, but the postal system is actually pretty good. You mail something on Monday and they recieve it on Tuesday. Can't complain about that.

I now live in Canada and the postal codes are LXP1A3 for example. At least the US are a litle easier to remember and less specific. Then again if you go to a site like mapquest you can pinpoint an address using just a postal code to within a few houses.

It can take a week to get something that was posted accross the street here though, and makes me miss the Irish postal system. The Canadian postal system just put in a new rule that no post will be delivered that does not the persons first, last and middle initial on it. WTF? If a kid writes a letter to their nana and does not know their nana's first name? ITs getting returned. :rolleyes:

Victor

embee wrote:

Say they are all called Patrick Murphy and they all live in Green Lane, Rathkean, Ardee, Co. Louth.

Sekrit idead

O_o, how about we implement house numbers!!!

vector

Victor wrote:

[Cork]In the city only

North East - 1
North West - 3
South East - 2
South West - 4A...

That is news to me
I've never seen Cork 2 or similar, the only thing I've seen is that the City
is "Cork" or "Cork City" and the county is "Co Cork"

On a larger scale... I did search on postcodes for Ireland and found this
http://homepages.iol.ie/~discover/mail.htm

"...Town (prefix the town with "IE" if item is mailed within Europe)" for example

The Avalon Hotel
223 BURLINGTON ROAD
IE DUBLIN 4

Never seen that either in real life.

Bogger77

Victor wrote:

they did it during the day (so people don't forget when they got up in the morning). Would you have had them start on a phased first, first trucks and busses, then cars and vans and finally motorbikes and cyclists?

Sweden was in the strange situation, of driving on the left, like us, with the sterring wheel on the the left of the car, like cont. Europe. Also,, there's the fact of land borders to right driving countries. it made sense to chance.

Imagine, if we switched, and Northern Ireland didn't, it'd be crazy.