Irish street names vs British street names

Mahogany

Has anyone noticed that in Britain EVERY road, street even alleyways have their own name, where as in Ireland a group of houses share the same address.

Anyone know the reasons why we didn't follow that way of naming?

HondaSami

You on about house in the country? towns are the same here as they are in the UK.

orestes

We don't have streets, we have roads.

SolarFlash

They should send out and army of people to take a gps reading of every building in the county and that anymore would be your address so instead of this being an address

Thomas O'Brien
66 Newport Road
Innisfreetown
Co Mayo

Your address instead would be simply

7654GHYHYFDFH67997654G

Mahogany

No, I mean, say for example you have a housing estate in Ireland, a lot of the time the whole estate shares the same name eg. Killinarden. in Britain, every road in the estate would have a different name.

Mahogany

Mahogany wrote: »

No, I mean, say for example you have a housing estate in Ireland, a lot of the time the whole estate shares the same name eg. Killinarden. in Britain, every road in the estate would have a different name.

It's not 100% the case here. In Listowel I know there's an estate called Dromin Green which is as you say, but in Santry there's the Northwood campus and the roads in there are named. Such as Northwood Road, Northwood Crescent, Northwood Avenue, etc.

DylanII

Mahogany wrote: »

No, I mean, say for example you have a housing estate in Ireland, a lot of the time the whole estate shares the same name eg. Killinarden. in Britain, every road in the estate would have a different name.

Would it not be Killinarden Road, Way, Avenue, Parade, Park etc?

I assume your not looking for them to all have different names like killinarden road is beside Mallahide avenue and Stepaside Park? If that is what you are talking about then the reason is because its stupid. Its better to have a name for a general area and then a street name? So if your address is 36 Cherrywood Ave, Lucan. You know to go to lucan then find cherrywood and then inside cherrywood there will be a cherrywood avenue. It just makes it easier.

Mahogany

DylanII wrote: »

Would it not be Killinarden Road, Way, Avenue, Parade, Park etc?

Nope, the whole things called Killinarden Estate.

Kevhog1988

im convinced the town planner in manchester is irish... i live on clifden road and last week saw a connemara road and dingle road

kneemos

We prefer to have magical mystery tour looking for a house number rather than a convenient road name or horror of horrors a post code.

holystungun9

Mahogany wrote: »

Nope, the whole things called Killinarden Estate.

The reality is that people will either refer to it as 'the estate' or more probably 'kipville'. Just one of those glitches in the matrix.

mike65

kneemos wrote: »

We prefer to have magical mystery tour looking for a house number rather than a convenient road name or horror of horrors a post code.

Yeah but if there is a post code we will have a post code lottery and this is a bad thing apparently.

gallag

Does Ireland not use a post code system?

Annasopra

Mahogany wrote: »

Has anyone noticed that in Britain EVERY road, street even alleyways have their own name, where as in Ireland a group of houses share the same address.

Anyone know the reasons why we didn't follow that way of naming?

No. I've never noticed this.

Annasopra

gallag wrote: »

Does Ireland not use a post code system?

not yet

Duggys Housemate

Anyone get the impression that if we had named sub parts of our estates with street and alley names, and the British didn't we'd be hearing about the efficiency of their system, and the awkwardness of ours.

In any case we do use the British system in modern developments. Tyrellstown is a maze of different addresses and street names.

It's all moot in the era of GPS and Google maps but driving into an estate where the numbers are increasing in order and lanes, or side roads have signs saying 100-200 This Estate is probably easier than looking for 7 Moonview Avenue, half a mile from 7 Moonview Crescent, and nowhere near 7 Moonview Road in the same estate. Locals don't even know these names.

awec

gallag wrote: »

Does Ireland not use a post code system?

Dublin sort of has one, but they are districts rather than per-street.

Sandwlch

Mahogany wrote: »

Has anyone noticed that in Britain EVERY road, street even alleyways have their own name, where as in Ireland a group of houses share the same address.

Anyone know the reasons why we didn't follow that way of naming?

So if the Brits do it one way, we should too ?

Separate countries since 1922 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State

seanm92

Sandwlch wrote: »

So if the Brits do it one way, we should too ?

Separate countries since 1922 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State

here we go...

Chop Chop

Mahogany wrote: »

Nope, the whole things called Killinarden Estate.

I thought it was kippenarden? Right beside fetterjobcairn-munfield-fermot

mathepac

I dunno about urban "planning" or what passes for it here, but in rural Ireland every field, hillock, bend in the road, gateway, cross-roads, junction has its own unique and characterful name.

My own extended family are proud keepers of a piece of the landscape referred to as Knockroe (An Cnoc Rua, the Red Hill) because the bracken / ferns go rust-coloured at certain times of the year. Knockroe is in the middle of a field called Mainsiter (Monastery) which has in opposing corners wells / springs called Monastery Well (Tobar na Mainistreach) and Powlawadra.

I thinks the Brits and town-dwellers miss out on a lot. Post-codes? No thanks, I prefer the Dog's Hole.

Pherekydes

mathepac wrote: »

I thinks the Brits and town-dwellers miss out on a lot. Post-codes? No thanks, I prefer the Dog's Hole.

It's not just the Brits that have post codes. Most of the civilized world has them.

fasttalkerchat

Its fine to have separate names if you can drive through a central road andhave all the streets to your left and right. Some estates have 2 places with almost identical names and some have a star shape with no way of knowing where to find a set of 10 houses

goose2005

kneemos wrote: »

We prefer to have magical mystery tour looking for a house number rather than a convenient road name or horror of horrors a post code.

Sure post codes were just brought in to help the Black and Tans find your house. Or something.

Duggys Housemate

goose2005 wrote: »

Sure post codes were just brought in to help the Black and Tans find your house. Or something.

Post codes are not related to this thread.

So, assuming the OP is correct, the only question is whether estates with dozens of different street names are more efficient than estates with numbers. I don't think so. Sometimes stuff in the UK isn't better.

pabloh999

orestes wrote: »

We don't have streets, we have roads.

Dame st? Dorset st?
Streets in city centre, roads when outside city centre.

kneemos

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Post codes are not related to this thread.

So, assuming the OP is correct, the only question is whether estates with dozens of different street names are more efficient than estates with numbers. I don't think so. Sometimes stuff in the UK isn't better.

If your looking at a map it's much more efficient.

gallag

It has to make using sat nav harder? I am used to puting a post code in only.

Duggys Housemate

kneemos wrote: »

If your looking at a map it's much more efficient.

Is it? maybe. If you are driving around the estate, less so.

I think this isn't Irish vs English. It's old vs new housing estates. People want to have streets on their postal address so they don't seem to be in an estate.

Peregrine

In Dublin all the roads in suburbian estates have similar names like Cedarwood Avenue, Cedarwood Park, Cedarwood Grove, Cedarwood Road and Cedarwood Green in Finglas. In inner city, the estates are much smaller and they tend to have different names like Joyce Road, Flemming Road, Walsh Road and Ferguson Road in an estate beside Griffith Park.

gallag wrote: »

Does Ireland not use a post code system?

Not currently, Dublin has postal districts from Dublin 1 to 24. But they're introducing it soon. Loc8 is finished but An Post has to adopt it

Andrew_Doran

awec wrote: »

Dublin sort of has one, but they are districts rather than per-street.

The postal district system was in operation for the big cities pre-independence. We didn't follow on with post codes. Notice that the prefixes "D" and "C" are not used in the British postcode system.

ozmo

SolarFlash wrote: »

They should send out and army of people to take a gps reading of every building in the county

Your address instead would be simply

7654GHYHYFDFH67997654G

Already done - you can get your address code from

http://www.myloc8ion.com/

several gps like garmin and phone apps support these postcodes.

dxhound2005

Nimrod 7 wrote: »

In Dublin all the roads in suburbian estates have similar names like Cedarwood Avenue, Cedarwood Park, Cedarwood Grove, Cedarwood Road and Cedarwood Green in Finglas. In inner city, the estates are much smaller and they tend to have different names like Joyce Road, Flemming Road, Walsh Road and Ferguson Road in an estate beside Griffith Park.



Not currently, Dublin has postal districts from Dublin 1 to 24. But they're introducing it soon. Loc8 is finished but An Post has to adopt it

Naming streets in estates after trees must be the most popular method in the country. There is a private estate in Dundalk called Bay Estate (after Dundalk Bay) which was originally numbered 1 to 600 or whatever. But the people didn't like that so it was all subdivided into streets named after trees, Cherrywood, Hazelwood Ave, Ashgrove etc. I think it caused major confusion for people doing deliveries for years afterwards.

Less imagination was used in the Muirhevnamor public estate with some of the streets being name Road 1, Road 2, Drive 1/2, Crescent 1/2 and Villas 1/2.

http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?id=556055

ozmo

Cool fact-

Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda

named not just one but lots of streets after him self
Henry Street, Moore Street, Earl Street, there was even an Of Lane (now Off lane near O'Connell st), and Drogheda Street.

mathepac

Pherekydes wrote: »

It's not just the Brits that have post codes. Most of the civilized world has them.

Ooooh, wrong side of the leaba or what?

Solair

Addressing and town planning haven't been a strong point here since the 1930s. We'd some really good examples under Irish rule for example, Drumcondra's development Griffith avenue & and loads of public housing integrated with well off middle class housing.

Schools, regularly places areas for shops, libraries, green spaces etc etc it had it all.

Then for some reason it went to hell after WW2!

Chaotic addressing and total lack of sensible planning !

We actually need geographic postcodes that identify a GPS location as our addressing is a total shambles !

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Sandwlch wrote: »

So if the Brits do it one way, we should too ?

Separate countries since 1922 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State

Actaully this is a trait in most countries in the western World. Britain is not unique in only having street names in rural areas.

kneemos

Lookit what did we not fight two world wars for?so we could follow the Brits?

Miss Lockhart

The estate I'm from (in Dublin) has around 350 houses and it's all just X Park. It's far far easier to find houses by just following the numbers as they progress than a system of road names that don't follow a pattern.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

kneemos wrote: »

Lookit what did we not fight two world wars for?so we could follow the Brits?

So we could pretend to not need anyone else's assistance.

WoollyRedHat

ozmo wrote: »

Cool fact-

Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda

named not just one but lots of streets after him self
Henry Street, Moore Street, Earl Street, there was even an Of Lane (now Off lane near O'Connell st), and Drogheda Street.

Narcisstic much

Duggys Housemate

kneemos wrote: »

Lookit what did we not fight two world wars for?so we could follow the Brits?

Sigh.

We did fight in WWI

kneemos

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

Sigh.

We did fight in WWI

200'000 of us apparently however one can be forgiven for making the mistake,it's not something we talked about until recently.

Pherekydes

mathepac wrote: »

Ooooh, wrong side of the leaba or what?

Anything to say about the content, rather than childish comments?

Duggys Housemate

Pherekydes wrote: »

Anything to say about the content, rather than childish comments?

About the content? We're not talking about post codes.

Pherekydes

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

About the content? We're not talking about post codes.

Fair enough. And what of the "wrong side of the leaba" comment?

Mahogany

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

The estate I'm from (in Dublin) has around 350 houses and it's all just X Park. It's far far easier to find houses by just following the numbers as they progress than a system of road names that don't follow a pattern.

That's what I mean I'm the same, but I would argue it makes it more difficult to find a house as sometimes you may struggle to follow the number pattern.

Some of you see what I'm getting at here, some of you are taking the piss, this is NOT an Brit bashing thread at all, I'm part English myself, grew up here.

Just curious is all, whole estates and even areas get labelled the same name, usually something like "X Park" but go into any town/city in the UK, EVERY road has its own name.

Is it to do with planning? Was it incompetence (or maybe competence for once?) on planning in this country and use of space.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Miss Lockhart wrote: »

The estate I'm from (in Dublin) has around 350 houses and it's all just X Park. It's far far easier to find houses by just following the numbers as they progress than a system of road names that don't follow a pattern.

In fairness, there's a lot of places in this country that don't even have numbers.

Used to work in a call center answering directory enquires and dreaded rural residential searches. Especially when the customers started giving me directions in place of an address.