National Postcodes to be introduced

Mountainsandh

ukoda wrote: »

Finally you've come to the relisation that it was in fact An Post who changed your address!

That was the only thing I was arguing with you on.

I agree with you on your other points, there shouldn't be 2 addresses (I never said there should be) I think we should just have the geographical address.

I have never argued that An Post did not change my address, I have argued that because An Post changed my address, and Eircode are adopting An Post addresses, Eircodes are changing addresses.

Pretend I'm a teacher, I look at the roll book, and I see your name as Bartholomew Murphy.

I decide to change your name to Bart, I have my reasons. (from now on I'll call you Bart, for my own reasons)

Because I changed your name to Bart, your friends start calling you Bart too.

So now, both I (An Post), and your friends (Eircode), are changing your name to Bart.

You can't argue that your friends are not changing your name.

edit : your name is Bartholomew, and you don't like it changed to Bart. You're peed off at your teacher, but also at your friends.

ukoda

Mountainsandh wrote: »

I have never argued that An Post did not change my address, I have argued that because An Post changed my address, and Eircode are adopting An Post addresses, Eircodes are changing addresses.

Pretend I'm a teacher, I look at the roll book, and I see your name as Bartholomew Murphy.

I decide to change your name to Bart, I have my reasons. (from now on I'll call you Bart, for my own reasons)

Because I changed your name to Bart, your friends start calling you Bart too.

So now, both I (An Post), and your friends (Eircode), are changing your name to Bart.

You can't argue that your friends are not changing your name.

edit : your name is Bartholomew, and you don't like it changed to Bart. You're peed off at your teacher, but also at your friends.

Nope. It would be:

Your parents wrote both names on your birth cert (geodirectory) some use one name, some use the other name, both are technically correct. But you have a preference for one version as you believe that's the right one, and you're annoyed people use the other one. You blame the people who use your other name (eircode) instead of the people who gave you the name in the first place ( An Post)

Mountainsandh

Nope.
The only way you could affirm that is by researching when current postal sorting offices were established, and so when addresses were amended within An Post to suit.

I tried a bit but I'm more concerned making sure members of my family were not victims of the attacks in Paris right now, but the geographical/historical addresses I'm talking about would be from say mid 1850s minimum, and probably much older when it comes to county, parochial boundaries and townland names.

So really, the little detail of An Post establishing sorting offices likely post 1900s and deciding their address is as valid as the historical address that preceeded is a non starter in my book.

I love researching historical facts like that and will try and look out for information tomorrow, unfortunately An Post are not very willing to share information on this, and are willing to muddle the waters, just like you are.

How not to answer a simple Why question :

Why is my postal address different to my address ?

An addressee can sometimes use different variations of their address depending on the circumstances, but An Post strongly recommends using the Official Postal Address to avoid any delays with the delivery of the mail piece.

http://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/GeneralTemplates/AboutUsStandard.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7bE548D57F-A84D-4C68-850C-238AAFC3BCF7%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fAnPost%2fFAQs%2fAddress%2bChecker%2bFAQs%2ehtm&NRCACHEHINT=Guest#3

They should be ashamed of themselves for putting that up on a website.

moyners

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Nope.
The only way you could affirm that is by researching when current postal sorting offices were established, and so when addresses were amended within An Post to suit.

I tried a bit but I'm more concerned making sure members of my family were not victims of the attacks in Paris right now, but the geographical/historical addresses I'm talking about would be from say mid 1850s minimum, and probably much older when it comes to county, parochial boundaries and townland names.

So really, the little detail of An Post establishing sorting offices likely post 1900s and deciding their address is as valid as the historical address that preceeded is a non starter in my book.

I love researching historical facts like that and will try and look out for information tomorrow, unfortunately An Post are not very willing to share information on this, and are willing to muddle the waters, just like you are.

How not to answer a simple Why question :



http://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/GeneralTemplates/AboutUsStandard.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7bE548D57F-A84D-4C68-850C-238AAFC3BCF7%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fAnPost%2fFAQs%2fAddress%2bChecker%2bFAQs%2ehtm&NRCACHEHINT=Guest#3

They should be ashamed of themselves for putting that up on a website.

To be fair I think you and Ukoda are on the same page. The core of what he is saying I think is that An Post are entirely to blame for your situation. They made the decision to use the opportunity to start imposing your 'postal' address and it was THEY that insisted on their database of postal addresses being used by Eircode. Eircode had no choice in the matter, it being decided by government. It was also An Post that insisted on basing the routing keys on postal sorting towns - again causing everyone to blame Eircode.

They have been incredibly quiet throughout all of this, letting all the ire be directed at Eircode.

On your other point I think that An Post have a rival database of historic placenames to OSI, inherited from the Royal Mail and dating back a couple of hundred years. I need to dig up some examples but I know that frequently disagree with the government and OSI on placename spelling etc. But that's entirely a different issue to them insisting on using post towns, sometimes in a different neighbouring county.

Also I hope your loved ones in Paris are all OK.

Impetus

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Ok, I didn't want to give my exact address, I'm sure you'll understand, so I have found a pretty impersonal example of discrepancy following one of the localities the local representative was talking about in the newspaper. I don't live there.

I hope I can link to the exact spot, if not, please search for :

Rathgormac, co Waterford, Parochial House. on geodirectory.ie (go to Irish addresses on the right hand side, there is a search function there).

Then look for the same parochial house on Eircode.ie (it's easy enough to find, right in the village, beside the church (right hand side of church on Eircode map).

I'll try and insert the 2 links :

https://www.geodirectory.ie/Maps/Research-Irish-Addresses.aspx
https://finder.eircode.ie/#/map

Don't think links work, as I suspected. Just do the searches.

My address is in the same situation.

In the above case, residents of Rathgormac, co Waterford, have their geodirectory address as :

Parochial House
RATHGORMUCK
CO. WATERFORD

Their Eircode address is :
PAROCHIAL HOUSE,
RATHGORMACK,
CARRICK-ON-SUIR,
CO. TIPPERARY

If the Eircode was a proper Euro-compliant code (and the coding agency rolled out a standard structured address system, a la most of the rest of the world), the address might instead be:

PAROCHIAL HOUSE
123 AYZ ROAD
51640 RATHGORMACK

or if posted outside of Ireland

PAROCHIAL HOUSE
123 AYZ ROAD
IE 51640 RATHGORMACK

1. Every house in Rathgormack would have the same code, making it easy to remember. The AYZ would usually reflect a local townland name. One could add "West, East, North and South" as suffixes to AYZ road to remove duplication in the event of multiple roads in the same townland with the same postcode. Alternatively use different blocks of house numbers eg 1000 AYZ road is a different road to 2000 AYZ road - and the local signage would reflect which road to take for which numbering range.

2. No need for long addresses incorporating a chain of disputed/frictional or otherwise town names.

3. The name of the county is not needed with a postcode. (With the dumb Eircode a Dublin 4 address is shown as "Dublin 4 D04 ABCD" which is needlessly tautological and shows how dumb the compiler of the "system" is).

4. If there was a large user of the post in the town (eg a mobile phone network correspondence centre, it might be given its own code eg 51642 RATHGORMACK).

5. The use of the ISO country code before the postcode for intra-European/international post simplifies the address further and removes ambiguity. The British tried to prevent this practice because their "200 year old" (slight exaggeration) sorting system mixes up some country codes with British postcodes which are not standards compliant. There is no British postcode beginning with "IE", so it would not be an issue. On the continent, most people ignore this British sponsored UPU regulation and continue to use the country code (either ISO or the old UN country code used on car license plates). As a result of standardisation, post generally arrives a lot faster on the continent (1 or 2 days, compared with 3 to 5 days from GB or IRL).

6. In a data entry application / website one would first enter the postcode and it would auto-fill the address fields. The remaining blank fields would auto-complete (eg street name would probably only require the first two characters of the road name to create a drop down list of one or two roads beginning with the same street/road name).

7. It would be easy to incorporate in GPS devices (requiring minimal memory space), and Google would probably have it up and running before the code was even published. Andorra introduced its own postcode system recently and it works in Google and GPS maps. For example go to http://tinyurl.com/ofq5586 (which is Google maps of Andorra) and type in any code eg AD500 or AD400 or AD600 etc and it performs an autolookup of the town name. Try entering your Eircode into Google maps and you get an error message.

8. Numeric postcodes can be read/written in all languages because numbers are universal. Imagine an Irish person trying to write a Chinese or Japanese address. China uses 6 digit postcodes and Japan uses 7 digits - readable by all.

Ireland needs a formal measure of dumbness to expenditure of money ratio, and for it to be widely used by journalists and others to point out the folly of decisions made. This could include government and private sector waste - because there was a lot of private waste of money on capital projects during the "Celtic tiger" era. Capita gets a €30M+ Mega dumb rating for Eircode in my books.....

oscarBravo

Impetus wrote: »

If the Eircode was a proper Euro-compliant code (and the coding agency rolled out a standard structured address system, a la most of the rest of the world)...

...and we're back to the argument that instead of Eircodes, we should have forced an enormous percentage of the people in the country to change their address.

Which is a completely reasonable argument, because it's not like anybody whatsoever in this thread - never mind in the last couple of pages - has had any issue whatsoever with their address changing.

The. Mind. Boggles.

Mountainsandh

oscarBravo wrote: »

...and we're back to the argument that instead of Eircodes, we should have forced an enormous percentage of the people in the country to change their address.

Which is a completely reasonable argument, because it's not like anybody whatsoever in this thread - never mind in the last couple of pages - has had any issue whatsoever with their address changing.

The. Mind. Boggles.

Adding a number to an address is more palatable than changing counties.
A more European type of postcode could have been introduced without change to addresses, other than possibly adding street numbers, and of course postcode numbers.

There isn't a hope in hell my Waterford born husband is going to change his address to co Tipp. We would have no objection to a street number, who would ?

oscarBravo

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Adding a number to an address is more palatable than changing counties.
A more European type of postcode could have been introduced without change to addresses, other than possibly adding street numbers, and of course postcode numbers.

...and of course street names.

So - apart from adding a street name and number and a postcode, your address wouldn't change.

There isn't a hope in hell my Waterford born husband is going to change his address to co Tipp. We would have no objection to a street number, who would ?

Shades of Impetus, who can't remember his Eircode, therefore nobody can: you would happily add a street name and number to your address, therefore everybody would.

As I've said before, it's trivial to design a postcode when the only criteria you have to meet are the ones you set yourself.

Sam Russell

oscarBravo wrote: »

...and of course street names.

So - apart from adding a street name and number and a postcode, your address wouldn't change.

Shades of Impetus, who can't remember his Eircode, therefore nobody can: you would happily add a street name and number to your address, therefore everybody would.

As I've said before, it's trivial to design a postcode when the only criteria you have to meet are the ones you set yourself.

It's trivial to design a postcode when you copy proven models that work successfully in other countries.

But of course, our Government has history on this - just look as eVoting, pPars, etc. Oh, and yes, we abandoned eVoting and pPars didn't we - having spent millions on them.

Just saying ......

Mountainsandh

oscarBravo wrote: »

...and of course street names.

So - apart from adding a street name and number and a postcode, your address wouldn't change.

Shades of Impetus, who can't remember his Eircode, therefore nobody can: you would happily add a street name and number to your address, therefore everybody would.

As I've said before, it's trivial to design a postcode when the only criteria you have to meet are the ones you set yourself.

I don't know what the hell you're going on about, it seems you are trying to draw an opposing character that has no relation to my position here.

My objection about the change in address is, as I have stated clearly and openly, about the change of county.

Are you seriously arguing that the people of Ireland wouldn't give a toss if they were told that they are now living in a different county ?

Seriously ?


It seems to me that belonging to a county is a big deal to Irish people in general, and it is obviously more significant even to people who live in the county where they were born.

That their street/road may be given a name, that their house may be numbered, do not hold the same significance.

That's pretty obvious imo.

Mr Mountains was mentioned as an example of your typical Irish man, for whom the county on his address is a big deal.
I have stated before on this thread or the other on same topic that I am French, and I care less personally. I do care because it's important to my spouse though, and a whole lot of other people I know in the area.

MarkK

Impetus wrote: »

Andorra introduced its own postcode system recently and it works in Google and GPS maps. For example go to http://tinyurl.com/ofq5586 (which is Google maps of Andorra) and type in any code eg AD500 or AD400 or AD600 etc and it performs an autolookup of the town name. Try entering your Eircode into Google maps and you get an error message.

"Andorra introduced its own postcode system recently"
Andorra introduced its postcode system over 10 years ago.
There are only 7 Andorran postcodes for Google to map.

oscarBravo

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Are you seriously arguing that the people of Ireland wouldn't give a toss if they were told that they are now living in a different county ?

Oh good Jesus, we're back to the nonsense narrative that Shannon Airport was moved to Limerick.

Nobody - not one single person - has been told that they are living in a different county.

If this repeatedly-debunked nonsense is the best argument there is against Eircodes, then the debate is clearly over.

Padster90s

Are there any updates on Eircodes being integrated into databases like Google Maps and An Post address look up? I'm seeing Eircodes starting to increasingly appear on letters and websites.

Bray Head

I would not be bothered in the morning if I was told I was living in a different county, or if I had to use a different variant of my address to ensure delivery. A county is simply an arbitrary geographical boundary in my view.

But I appreciate that a lot of Irish people feel very strongly about what county name is written on their letters that come through their first door. To me it is silly but there are people who take it very seriously. I respect that.

But there are posters on this thread who think that their own strongly-held views are strongly held by everyone, and that the world should be shaped around this.

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with eircode.

Mountainsandh

Bray Head wrote: »

I would not be bothered in the morning if I was told I was living in a different county, or if I had to use a different variant of my address to ensure delivery. A county is simply an arbitrary geographical boundary in my view.

But I appreciate that a lot of Irish people feel very strongly about what county name is written on their letters that come through their first door. To me it is silly but there are people who take it very seriously. I respect that.

But there are posters on this thread who think that their own strongly-held views are strongly held by everyone, and that the world should be shaped around this.

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with eircode.

Of course Bray Head, not everybody is going to be bothered. The fact is though, that I'm living in a rural area where for every person that I ask, the county they write on their address is important.

Which is why rather than change counties on their address for the past 13 years (this is the stretch I'm living here, although they obviously have been doing that longer), they write VIA town, their own county.

Nobody - not one single person - has been told that they are living in a different county.

This is absolutely not "debunked". It's not a conspiracy theory for a start.
You are using semantics again, and condescending tones, to dismiss valid pragmatic concerns with hypocritical soundbites.

Often happens with these types of projects.

I would suggest that we stop arguing here because I do not (and neither do all these other people who live in my area, and other areas in my county alone, and find themselves in the same situation) have a way to ignore the issue as you would like me to.

The reality for myself (and others, again this is not just me), is that our post will be delayed in the foreseeable future because of the introduction of Eircodes. Eventually An Post might consistently use Eircodes to route our post correctly with our correct county on the address (I have been testing and it's not consistent right now), and Eircodes will actually be accepted in a greater proportion of services/online traders, etc...

Right now this is an inconvenient mess.

In the future when Eircode and An Post addresses are widely used and relied upon, I expect the debate to reopen, since of course, no commercial agency, state sponsored or otherwise, will be inclined to keep 2 address databases for customers instead of one (geographical/historical vs Eircode/An Post).


It would be nice to have that debate of whether commercial interests can supersede historical, geographical, cultural importance right now, in the open, but I realize this is usually not the way things work in Ireland.

The "normal" response is jargon, soundbites, online pdf report type mission statements and terms of reference.

JohnC.

The address thing is not Eircode. They've been doing that in many areas since well before Eircode. Routing my post through the "wrong" county can get post to me a day earlier than the "correct" county, because it is a routing address (describing the best route for the post to take), not an actual physical address (which hasn't changed at all), so I'd dispute your claim about it delaying post too. People here have been using "Via Waterford" (ie. the "wrong" county) for longer than I can remember.

Mountainsandh

Kahless wrote: »

The address thing is not Eircode. They've been doing that in many areas since well before Eircode. Routing my post through the "wrong" county can get post to me a day earlier than the "correct" county, because it is a routing address (describing the best route for the post to take), not an actual physical address (which hasn't changed at all), so I'd dispute your claim about it delaying post too. People here have been using "Via Waterford" (ie. the "wrong" county) for longer than I can remember.

Kahless the delay is only since this summer, hence my inference about Eircodes roll out having something to do with it.

I'm not the only one with the issue, and the only one to make the link between Eircode and postal stance, as I mention in previous post this is in local papers this week with a representative mentioning other areas (and inhabitants) of the county with the same observations.

I could take a snap of a letter with a "delayed wrong address" sticker if you insist, but frankly I couldn't be bothered right now.

edit : here

TheChizler

Ah, the classic scientific concept of correlation therefore causation...

Mountainsandh

TheChizler wrote: »

Ah, the classic scientific concept of correlation therefore causation...

Because of course this boards.ie thread is all about scientific analysis of the situation.

TheChizler

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Because of course this boards.ie thread is all about scientific analysis of the situation.

What's the alternative? Jumping to conclusions without evidence?

Mountainsandh

TheChizler wrote: »

What's the alternative? Jumping to conclusions without evidence?

Yes of course, this is a discussion forum, not an official inquiry board.

"Jumping" to conclusions of course is flowery language for pretty reasonable assumptions.

marmurr1916

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Of course Bray Head, not everybody is going to be bothered. The fact is though, that I'm living in a rural area where for every person that I ask, the county they write on their address is important.

Which is why rather than change counties on their address for the past 13 years (this is the stretch I'm living here, although they obviously have been doing that longer), they write VIA town, their own county.



This is absolutely not "debunked". It's not a conspiracy theory for a start.
You are using semantics again, and condescending tones, to dismiss valid pragmatic concerns with hypocritical soundbites.

Often happens with these types of projects.

I would suggest that we stop arguing here because I do not (and neither do all these other people who live in my area, and other areas in my county alone, and find themselves in the same situation) have a way to ignore the issue as you would like me to.

The reality for myself (and others, again this is not just me), is that our post will be delayed in the foreseeable future because of the introduction of Eircodes. Eventually An Post might consistently use Eircodes to route our post correctly with our correct county on the address (I have been testing and it's not consistent right now), and Eircodes will actually be accepted in a greater proportion of services/online traders, etc...

Right now this is an inconvenient mess.

In the future when Eircode and An Post addresses are widely used and relied upon, I expect the debate to reopen, since of course, no commercial agency, state sponsored or otherwise, will be inclined to keep 2 address databases for customers instead of one (geographical/historical vs Eircode/An Post).


It would be nice to have that debate of whether commercial interests can supersede historical, geographical, cultural importance right now, in the open, but I realize this is usually not the way things work in Ireland.

The "normal" response is jargon, soundbites, online pdf report type mission statements and terms of reference.

But 'alias addresses', such as addresses where people use their geographical county rather than a 'postal' county, or where there's An Post preferred address (referred to as the USP [Universal Service Provider] Postal Address on the Eircode website - see below) and various other 'alias' addresses, are included in the Eircode address database:

With Eircode you will be able to access address data for all address points in Ireland.

Eircode offers two data products for purchase;

Eircode Address File (ECAF) is the base reference data containing all 2.2 million address points with their Eircode and USP Postal Address

Eircode Address Database (ECAD) contains additional data for each address such as , alias address information, geo-coordinates and other data including but not limited to boundary data and building information. The purchase of the ECAF is a prerequisite for purchase of the ECAD (please refer to our Pricing and Licensing Information for more details)

https://www.eircode.ie/business/products-and-services

Mountainsandh wrote: »

It would be nice to have that debate of whether commercial interests can supersede historical, geographical, cultural importance right now, in the open, but I realize this is usually not the way things work in Ireland.

Royal Mail in the UK has an address database and encourages people to use the Royal Mail preferred form of their address, which no longer needs county names as part of the address.

However, recognising many people's desire to retain the county name as part of their address, Royal Mail allows informal forms of address, including the addition of county names which can vary depending on whether the pre-1974 or post-1974 county name is used; e.g Southport could either be in the county of Lancashire or the county of Merseyside according to individual preference.

Royal Mail doesn't require either county name to be used as part of its preferred address format but allows either county name to be used as part of its flexible addressing policy:

"Until 1974 the traditional County names formed the "county" element in Post Office recommended postal addresses throughout most of the United Kingdom. However, in 1974, the Post Office changed the "postal
counties" in Wales and some parts of England, basing the new ones on
some of the new local government areas created in that year. Hence,
such entities as "Avon", "South Humberside" and "Dyfed" began to
appear in postal addresses. However, these new "postal counties" were
unpopular with many people and the traditional County names have
continued to be widely used in those areas affected. Furthermore, this
policy was only applied to a part of the United Kingdom. In Scotland,
Northern Ireland and much of England traditional Counties have
continued to form the "postal counties".

Ironically, all but one of the local authorities from which the new
1974 "postal counties" took their names were abolished within 22 years
! Names such as "Clwyd", "North Humberside" and "Cleveland" are
already historically redundant. Meanwhile, of course, the traditional
Counties in these areas continue to be important cultural and
geographical entities. The lesson is clear. In areas such as postal
addressing, it is clearly desirable to use a fixed geographical
framework: one divorced from the very changing names and areas of
administrative units but, instead, rooted in history, tradition,
public affection and understanding. The traditional Counties provide
this geographical framework and are the only sensible choice to use as
the County element in postal addressing.

With the introduction of Postcode Defined Circulation, the "county"
component of postal addressing is no longer of operational importance
to the Royal Mail. This led to the Royal Mail introducing its
"Flexible Addressing" policy in the mid-1990's. Under this policy,one
can now use the traditional County name as the "county line" in any
U.K. postal address.

In fact, under "Flexible Addressing" there is now no need to include
any kind of "county line" at all in any U.K. postal address.

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GENBRIT/2003-07/1059142412

Mail still gets delivered to addresses which use non-standard address forms (e.g. mail which includes a county name as part of the address) but may be delivered more slowly, especially if the postcode is left out or incomplete.

Unlike An Post, Royal Mail does not attach notices to items of mail which don't use the Royal Mail preferred address format (Postcode Defined Circulation format) meaning that most customers aren't aware of Royal Mail's policy that county names are no longer required and don't form part of the preferred address format of the Universal Service Provider of mail services across the UK.

With the advent of Eircodes An Post now has the opportunity to publicise a similar flexible address policy whereby mail is delivered no matter what form of address is used so long as a valid Eircode is included to enable correct routing and delivery of mailed items.

IMO An Post should stop attaching notices to mailed items that don't use the An Post preferred address format and simply notify people through its website (or direct them to the Eircode website) that An Post preferred addresses may differ from geographical or traditional addresses but that mail will still be delivered no matter which address format is used, although delivery may be delayed in some instances if the routing is affected because of a geographical address being used instead of an An Post preferred address.

That way people can continue to use whatever address they've always used, including a geographical county address, instead of the An Post postal address, and mail gets delivered regardless, although eventually it's likely that mail will be delivered more quickly if an 'unofficial' address is used in combination with an Eircode than if just an 'unofficial' address is used without an Eircode.

That's pretty much what happens in the UK.

Mail addressed to Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh BTXX 1ZY (which includes the county name, no longer required by Royal Mail) is delivered almost as quickly as mail addressed to ENNISKILLEN BTXX 1ZY (the Royal Mail preferred address format including capitalisation of the name of the post town) as long at the correct postcode is included, although mail without the no longer required county name will have a slight edge when it comes to delivery times in some restricted circumstances.

As far as I know this doesn't have much of an impact on delivery times in practice except at busier times of year (eg. Christmas) when leaving out the county name makes hard to read addresses, or mail that need to be rescanned or manually sorted for whatever reason, a bit quicker to be processed - at least that's what a friend who works for Royal Mail tells me. The reason being that human beings take longer to read these addresses and the addition of a superfluous county name in the address makes it that tiny little bit longer to read, not a huge difference for an individual item but the impact across millions of items does make a difference, especially during the massive rush in the run up to Christmas.

In general, mail addressed to Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh or ENNISKILLEN would take longer to arrive because of the missing postcode as the technology used to sort mail is obviously designed to look for postcodes.

I've no doubt that in time mail to addresses which include Eircodes will get delivered more quickly than mail to addresses without Eircodes, whether the rest of the address is in the An Post preferred format or not, much like in the UK, although mail with An Post preferred addresses and Eircodes will have the edge over mail with an 'alias' address with an Eircode, and mail without Eircodes bringing up the rear.

Mountainsandh

I'm still experimenting in that regard, since a lot of (most) services I use online do not accommodate Eircodes, so I still receive a lot of mail with the "wrong" address and no Eircode. I think I have received some mail with Eircode+wrong address, and thought it wasn't delayed, but I didn't keep the envelopes so don't remember if it's happened more than once or not.
I'm after ordering a good few bits off Ebay and have emailed the sellers to include Eircode, so I i'll be able to tell in the next week or so.

It's great if Eircode already has a second list of addresses, I wonder though if they are simply alternative spellings and how accurate (ie co recorded). My townland is always spelled differently on Google maps than irl alright, but with proper county.

Nichard Dixon

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Royal Mail doesn't require either county name to be used as part of its preferred address format but allows either county name to be used as part of its flexible addressing policy:

In reality it is the postal town that is important, the county is not important except perhaps as a form of cross check on the town name. This is reflected in Eircode which has top level codes relating to postal towns, but not much relating to counties.

ukoda

Mountainsandh wrote: »

It's great if Eircode already has a second list of addresses, I wonder though if they are simply alternative spellings and how accurate (ie co recorded). My townland is always spelled differently on Google maps than irl alright, but with proper county.

ukoda wrote: »

This is what the entry for your house looks like in the geodirectory database



Eircode are pointing to the postal address. But they didn't create it or change it. They simply used it. I can't make it any clearer than this.

i was telling/showing you this 2 days ago but you were intent on arguing with me, now you think its "great"....

plodder

Nichard Dixon wrote: »

In reality it is the postal town that is important, the county is not important except perhaps as a form of cross check on the town name. This is reflected in Eircode which has top level codes relating to postal towns, but not much relating to counties.

I haven't been following this discussion really, but it used to be the case that valid postal addresses would always use the correct county, but the nearest postal town might be in a different county.

So, your address might say "Drogheda, Co. Meath" if you live near Drogheda, but in Co, Meath, and even though Drogheda is actually in Co Louth. It seems to be less objectionable to people to have that inconsistency in their address, than it is to have the wrong county as part of it. I don't know if that policy has changed, and the valid postal address uses the wrong county now. Given the importance attached to counties, I wouldn't be surprised if people objected to that.

GJG

plodder wrote: »

I haven't been following this discussion really, but it used to be the case that valid postal addresses would always use the correct county, but the nearest postal town might be in a different county.

I can confirm that I'm aware of ructions over just this happening 30 years ago or more, where the final destination was in a different county to the postal town via which the post came. This was worse where the postal town was not large like Drogheda, but too small to be known nationwide, so post got lost or delayed while people searched for a town in a county where it didn't exist. I can't think of a clearer example of a need for a postcode.

plodder wrote: »

So, your address might say "Drogheda, Co. Meath" if you live near Drogheda, but in Co, Meath, and even though Drogheda is actually in Co Louth. It seems to be less objectionable to people to have that inconsistency in their address, than it is to have the wrong county as part of it. I don't know if that policy has changed, and the valid postal address uses the wrong county now. Given the importance attached to counties, I wouldn't be surprised if people objected to that.

Well that really sinks the argument that an emergency measure to avoid would be to - ha! - simply give every dwelling in the country a house number and giving every unnamed road a street/road name, and renaming all roads and renumbering all the houses that had conflicting names and numbers.

Exactly why some people thought that such chaos would preferable to having a postcode system, or why having a postcode conflicted with that if you really want to do it, that's for them to explain.

Mountainsandh

ukoda wrote: »

i was telling/showing you this 2 days ago but you were intent on arguing with me, now you think its "great"....

You pointed to the geodirectory address, not Eircode...

I already know geodirectory have my correct address... I told you they did in fact.

It is Eircode I am concerned about.

Today I received about 3 letters and a parcel with the "wrong" address (my geographical county etc), no Eircode, and no delayed/incorrect address sticker. No consistency here, I think some employees seem able to route our post, while others are not so. One of the letters was our tv license...

chewed

I see the Company Search in https://search.cro.ie/company/ provides Eircodes on all businesses!

ukoda

Mountainsandh wrote: »

You pointed to the geodirectory address, not Eircode...

I already know geodirectory have my correct address... I told you they did in fact.

It is Eircode I am concerned about.

Today I received about 3 letters and a parcel with the "wrong" address (my geographical county etc), no Eircode, and no delayed/incorrect address sticker. No consistency here, I think some employees seem able to route our post, while others are not so. One of the letters was our tv license...

I still haven't gotten it through to you:

Geoditectory database = eircode database
Eircode database = geodirectory database

It's the same, no different, exact same thing, eircode took the geoditectory and added eircode to it. Whatever geodirectory has, eircode has.

I tried to point out to you that geodirectory website and eircode website both access the same database. The same. SAME.

GEOdirectory website returns the GEOgraphical address

Eircode website returns the POSTAL address

But they are both looking at the same database and the exact same address point with its multiple forms of the known address.