Eircode Routing Keys

OssianSmyth · 14-07-2015 8:30pm #1

I've compiled a list of Eircode routing keys along with corresponding towns.

I have 131 so far. Eircode say that there are 139 in total - so it would be great if you could look at the list and see if your routing key is one of the missing 8.

http://www.ossiansmyth.ie/eircode-routing-keys/

Note that routing keys sometimes cross county boundaries.

I notice that routing keys do not seem to be evenly spread based on population. Rush Lusk, Malahide, Balbriggan and Skerries each have their own routing key while Limerick city and county is mostly covered by one key with a population of about 80K.

Is this a sign of projected future population growth?

Also I notice that the random, 4-character element of the eircode is not that random. There are 390K possible combinations less 130K inappropriate words. So that's 260K choices. However the final four characters of my eircode "XN50" is also a valid eircode in the first 4 other routing keys that I tried. mmm...

a65b2cd · 14-07-2015 9:02pm

You seem to be missing: A42, A45, F56, P31, P32, T34, V31, AND X42

expectationlost · 14-07-2015 10:48pm

heres a crowdsourced map of the routing keys https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=zrmXDfjvem7g.k2eSAnvagEdQ partly based on above

plodder · 14-07-2015 11:39pm

OssianSmyth wrote: »

I've compiled a list of Eircode routing keys along with corresponding towns.

I have 131 so far. Eircode say that there are 139 in total - so it would be great if you could look at the list and see if your routing key is one of the missing 8.

http://www.ossiansmyth.ie/eircode-routing-keys/

Note that routing keys sometimes cross county boundaries.

I notice that routing keys do not seem to be evenly spread based on population. Rush Lusk, Malahide, Balbriggan and Skerries each have their own routing key while Limerick city and county is mostly covered by one key with a population of about 80K.

Is this a sign of projected future population growth?

Also I notice that the random, 4-character element of the eircode is not that random. There are 390K possible combinations less 130K inappropriate words. So that's 260K choices. However the final four characters of my eircode "XN50" is also a valid eircode in the first 4 other routing keys that I tried. mmm...

No, I don't think so

plodder · 14-07-2015 11:44pm

Good first attempt at a mapping. Getting the actual boundaries will require a bit more work though. You are right there is a huge variation in area size. The areas reflect An Post's delivery structure. So, there isn't necessarily an obvious justification for all of them.

expectationlost · 15-07-2015 12:46am

plodder wrote: »

Good first attempt at a mapping. Getting the actual boundaries will require a bit more work though. You are right there is a huge variation in area size. The areas reflect An Post's delivery structure. So, there isn't necessarily an obvious justification for all of them.

so why isnt' there a map already of An Post postal towns (or presort codes and subareas) ?

marmurr1916 · 15-07-2015 2:10am

a65b2cd wrote: »

You seem to be missing: A42, A45, F56, P31, P32, T34, V31, AND X42

P31 is centered on Ballincollig in Co. Cork (just west of Cork city), P32 is part of north-west Co. Cork, between Cork city and Millstreet (Rylane is marked with P32 on the map above), T34 is rural areas and villages (including Whitechurch and Carrignavar) a few miles north of Cork city.

Cork towns:

Ballincollig - P31

Bandon - P72

Bantry - P75

Blarney - see Cork City (northside)

Carrigaline - P43

Carrignavar - T34

Charleville - P56

Clonakilty - P85

Cobh - P24

Cork City (northside) - T23

Cork City (southside) - T12

Dunmanway - P47

Fermoy - P61

Glanmire - T45

Kanturk - P51 (also Mallow, Millstreet)

Kinsale - P17

Macroom - P12

Mallow - see Kanturk

Midleton - P25

Millstreet - see Kanturk

Mitchelstown - P67

Monkstown - see Cork City (southside)

Passage West - see Cork City (southside)

Rylane - P32

Skibbereen - P81

Watergrasshill - T56

Youghal - P36

expectationlost · 15-07-2015 3:02am

marmurr1916 wrote: »

P31 is centered on Ballincollig in Co. Cork (just west of Cork city).

oh great think the map has atleast one of all of the keys

15 large letter areas

Monasterevin W32 is surrounder by R's

marmurr1916 · 15-07-2015 3:31am

expectationlost wrote: »

oh great think the map has atleast one of all of the keys

15 large letter area

Monasterevin W32 is surrounder by R's

I still can't find P14 for Co. Cork - listed here:

http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/dber/domesticbuildingenergyratingsquarter22015/#.VaXCw_lVikr

D.L.R. · 15-07-2015 6:28am

These routing keys seem to have been pulled out of someone's arse.. no order, no sequence, no logic.

The "A" zone is split in two ffs, from Wicklow to Monaghan. What the actual f**k?

With only 130 routing codes, building in some intuitive regional logic should have been easy.

For some inexplicable reason, they've chosen not to do that.

So messy and illogical, very frustrating.

plodder · 15-07-2015 7:24am

expectationlost wrote: »

so why isnt' there a map already of An Post postal towns (or presort codes and subareas) ?

I'd say such a map exists, but they don't want to publish it, as it opens the whole can of worms about the structure of the code. They want people to treat eircodes as simple identifiers with no visible structure. To do anything useful with them, they want you to license their products.

The backers of loc8 (the FTAI) have said they will produce a map in conjunction with someone who has access to the Eircode database.

plodder · 15-07-2015 7:29am

D.L.R. wrote: »

These routing keys seem to have been pulled out of someone's arse.. no order, no sequence, no logic.

The "A" zone is split in two ffs, from Wicklow to Monaghan. What the actual f**k?

With only 130 routing codes, building in some intuitive regional logic should have been easy.

For some inexplicable reason, they've chosen not to do that.

So messy and illogical, very frustrating.

They explain their reasoning in a design document that was never officially published and therefore no chance for the public to have any input to it.

Someone uploaded a copy of it here

http://www.docdroid.net/soI9zRx/nps-design-report-v4-redacted.pdf.html

fxotoole · 15-07-2015 7:37am

I think the Naas sorting centre is W23, since W23 seems to be the first three digits of the eircode for most of North Kildare

fxotoole · 15-07-2015 7:42am

D.L.R. wrote: »

These routing keys seem to have been pulled out of someone's arse.. no order, no sequence, no logic.

The "A" zone is split in two ffs, from Wicklow to Monaghan. What the actual f**k?

With only 130 routing codes, building in some intuitive regional logic should have been easy.

For some inexplicable reason, they've chosen not to do that.

So messy and illogical, very frustrating.

The keys are probably based on the existing infrastructure of sorting offices that are already in place.

OssianSmyth · 15-07-2015 8:27am

Thanks to everyone who helped - I now have all 139 routing keys with at least one town in each. I am not going to map them manually - I'll wait until I can get a file to do the job with a script.

http://www.ossiansmyth.ie/eircode-routing-keys/

marmurr1916 wrote: »

I still can't find P14 for Co. Cork - listed here:

http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/dber/domesticbuildingenergyratingsquarter22015/#.VaXCw_lVikr

Crookstown

moyners · 15-07-2015 9:21am

An Post have a map of their delivery zones for people wanting to deliver promotional mail. There's more of these than eircode routing codes so I'm guessing some of them are amalgamated but it gives you an idea of how crazy some of the areas are:
https://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/AnPostDM/ProductsAndServices/Publicity+Post/Instant+Quote/Publicity+Post+Map.htm

OssianSmyth · 15-07-2015 9:47am

moyners wrote: »

An Post have a map of their delivery zones for people wanting to deliver promotional mail. There's more of these than eircode routing codes so I'm guessing some of them are amalgamated but it gives you an idea of how crazy some of the areas are:
https://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/AnPostDM/ProductsAndServices/Publicity+Post/Instant+Quote/Publicity+Post+Map.htm

I think you're right. Some of the routing key borders certainly match parts of these an post division maps.

moyners · 15-07-2015 9:51am

OssianSmyth wrote: »

I think you're right. Some of the routing key borders certainly match parts of these an post division maps.

T12, Cork south city also includes all the areas down the N71 as far as Innashannon so Waterfall, Halfway, Ballinhassig, the Airport (and Business Park) and those areas.

OssianSmyth · 15-07-2015 9:54am

The three-character routing key allowed for 25^3 combinations or 15,625 areas. But eircode chose just 139.

Smaller areas would have been more useful. We now have H91 - an area with 70K people stretching from Ballyvaughan in Clare around to Spiddal in West Galway. These towns are 65km apart and located in separate provinces.

plodder · 15-07-2015 9:56am

OssianSmyth wrote: »

The three-character routing key allowed for 25^3 combinations or 15,625 areas. But eircode chose just 139.

Smaller areas would have been more useful. We now have H91 - an area with 70K people stretching from Ballyvaughan in Clare around to Spiddal in West Galway. These towns are 65km apart and located in separate provinces.

and the areas in rural North Dublin are small, population no more than couple of thousand if even that.

OssianSmyth · 15-07-2015 10:13am

plodder wrote: »

and the areas in rural North Dublin are small, population no more than couple of thousand if even that.

it's less than that.

areas with number of dwellings in each:
A41 394
A42 857
A45 496

loyatemu · 15-07-2015 11:02am

Why did they follow the An Post routing scheme when An Post already have their own scheme and have said they will continue using it regardless of Eircode?

plodder · 15-07-2015 11:10am

loyatemu wrote: »

Why did they follow the An Post routing scheme when An Post already have their own scheme and have said they will continue using it regardless of Eircode?

Because if the whole thing didn't have the "moral support" of An Post, it was thought people wouldn't use it given that it's supposed to be a postcode. But, in reality what was needed was, a location code, and a unique identifier, not particularly a postcode. Crazy situation.

OssianSmyth · 15-07-2015 11:17am

"There are approx 2,000 An Post post towns. An Post identified a subset of 139 to be used by Eircode that are future proofed...
It's a hierarchy. 4 main centres at the top, then 139 principle post towns, then 2,000 post towns. An Post would be best to explain"

https://twitter.com/autoaddress/status/607158063313895424

my3cents · 15-07-2015 11:41am

If anyone is still looking for them X42 Goes with the Kilmacthomas Co. Waterford delivery addresses.

Victor · 15-07-2015 12:01pm

moyners wrote: »

An Post have a map of their delivery zones for people wanting to deliver promotional mail. There's more of these than eircode routing codes so I'm guessing some of them are amalgamated but it gives you an idea of how crazy some of the areas are:
https://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/AnPostDM/ProductsAndServices/Publicity+Post/Instant+Quote/Publicity+Post+Map.htm

Some of that is, er, novel.

GerardKeating · 15-07-2015 12:48pm

OssianSmyth wrote: »

The three-character routing key allowed for 25^3 combinations or 15,625 areas. But eircode chose just 139.

Smaller areas would have been more useful. We now have H91 - an area with 70K people stretching from Ballyvaughan in Clare around to Spiddal in West Galway. These towns are 65km apart and located in separate provinces.

H91 goes further than An Spidéal, out to at least Ros A Mhi, or further

murphaph · 19-07-2015 12:16pm

moyners wrote: »

An Post have a map of their delivery zones for people wanting to deliver promotional mail. There's more of these than eircode routing codes so I'm guessing some of them are amalgamated but it gives you an idea of how crazy some of the areas are:
https://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/AnPostDM/ProductsAndServices/Publicity+Post/Instant+Quote/Publicity+Post+Map.htm

That's a real eye opener, thanks, and explains why places like Newcastle, Co. Dublin now have a D22 XXXX Eircode (and thereby will invariably be seen as less desirable). Same goes for Rathcoole (now apparently part of D24 and Portmarnock and Howth, now apparently part of D13. I expect there to be some backlash, especially from Howth/Portmarnock property owners.

It's so crazy there is an ENCLAVE in the An Post delivery areas!! If you look at Lucan (around Fonthill) you'll see that there's an enclave of LN1 totally surrounded by LN2. I strongly suspect this is a result of the time Liam Lawlor meddled with the system to remove lands he had an interest in from D22 an transfer them to Lucan, County Dublin. It seems terribly unfair that property owners in places like Portmarnock, Howth, Newcastle and Rathcoole/Saggart now have to suffer these transfers to what are obviously less desirable Dublin postal districts, while properties that should have been in D22 all along get neutral Eircodes.

threeiron · 19-07-2015 1:06pm

murphaph wrote: »

I expect there to be some backlash, especially from Howth/Portmarnock property owners.

I think the Eircode will actually enable households to write their actual geographical address without any penalty of the post arriving a day late - because An Post will use the Eircode to route it correctly. This is one of the unforeseen benefits of Eircodes.

alias no.9 · 19-07-2015 1:50pm

P51 seems to stretch from Kerry (Rathmore) through north Cork to Waterford (Cappoquin) along the Blackwater but is bisected by the M8 corridor at Fermoy which is P61

Victor · 19-07-2015 3:36pm

During the week, I had a niggling feeling that a lot of the routings were down to how mail trains (the last such trains were withdrawn about 15 years ago) operated - each train station in North County Dublin has it's own code, etc. Not only were routings important, but with post and trains, time of day is also important - certain parts of the network would have more than one mail train per day, therefore, certain post would be prioritised.

I've just twigged why parts of Wicklow are associated with the North East - telephone codes, which were in turn somewhat based on telephone exchange routings, which were originally based on telegraph routings, which were based on railway lines (slightly different from train routes).

In recent years, there has been some amalgamation of telephone area codes. Note that the telephone code boundaries aren't precise.

Sam Russell · 19-07-2015 4:17pm

How much more logical the routing keys would be if based on the STD codes in the first map. Also more memorable and numeric.

SPDUB · 19-07-2015 10:56pm

murphaph wrote: »

That's a real eye opener, thanks, and explains why places like Newcastle, Co. Dublin now have a D22 XXXX Eircode (and thereby will invariably be seen as less desirable). Same goes for Rathcoole (now apparently part of D24 and Portmarnock and Howth, now apparently part of D13. I expect there to be some backlash, especially from Howth/Portmarnock property owners.

It's so crazy there is an ENCLAVE in the An Post delivery areas!! If you look at Lucan (around Fonthill) you'll see that there's an enclave of LN1 totally surrounded by LN2. I strongly suspect this is a result of the time Liam Lawlor meddled with the system to remove lands he had an interest in from D22 an transfer them to Lucan, County Dublin. It seems terribly unfair that property owners in places like Portmarnock, Howth, Newcastle and Rathcoole/Saggart now have to suffer these transfers to what are obviously less desirable Dublin postal districts, while properties that should have been in D22 all along get neutral Eircodes.

These "transfers" aren't new .

Portmarnock , Rathcoole etc have been routed to those offices at a minimum for the last 7 years.

Lucan is now co located with the D22 office sharing staff and facilities

murphaph · 20-07-2015 12:11pm

SPDUB wrote: »

These "transfers" aren't new .

Portmarnock , Rathcoole etc have been routed to those offices at a minimum for the last 7 years.

Lucan is now co located with the D22 office sharing staff and facilities

Interesting. I suspected that post to these areas was being routed through these sorting offices, even though nobody in these areas has ever been told or asked to begin using these postal districts in their addresses.

Who has the authority to create/amend postal districts I wonder? Do An Post have a legal right to just "annex" somewhere like Portmarnock into D13? Could An Post change the boundaries and make D6 bigger at the expense of D4, for example? I would imagine something like that would go down like a lead balloon among the affected property owners.

Interesting about Lucan....so does mail being sent to Lucan go via the D22 sorting office like mail for Newcastle?

moyners · 20-07-2015 1:07pm

murphaph wrote: »

Interesting. I suspected that post to these areas was being routed through these sorting offices, even though nobody in these areas has ever been told or asked to begin using these postal districts in their addresses.

Who has the authority to create/amend postal districts I wonder? Do An Post have a legal right to just "annex" somewhere like Portmarnock into D13? Could An Post change the boundaries and make D6 bigger at the expense of D4, for example? I would imagine something like that would go down like a lead balloon among the affected property owners.

Interesting about Lucan....so does mail being sent to Lucan go via the D22 sorting office like mail for Newcastle?

Pretty sure An Post have the power to make you use whatever postal address they seem correct - despite COMREG trying to stop them.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/high-court-rules-post-can-be-delivered-only-to-postal-address-28817426.html

http://www.courts.ie/Judgments.nsf/0/ABD72020A7B7504E80257A9B0039E3EF

alias no.9 · 20-07-2015 1:34pm

alias no.9 wrote: »

P51 seems to stretch from Kerry (Rathmore) through north Cork to Waterford (Cappoquin) along the Blackwater but is bisected by the M8 corridor at Fermoy which is P61

Assuming the AnPost zones map to the Eircode, this is the map for routing code P51...

xper · 20-07-2015 5:04pm

murphaph wrote: »

Who has the authority to create/amend postal districts I wonder? Do An Post have a legal right to just "annex" somewhere like Portmarnock into D13? Could An Post change the boundaries and make D6 bigger at the expense of D4, for example? I would imagine something like that would go down like a lead balloon among the affected property owners

Since the postal areas were, surprise, surprise, entirely devised by and for the sole use of the forerunner of An Post, it should be no surprise that they exercise the right to enforce or amend them.
Now, as we head into the world of demonopolised delivery services, it is appropriate that responsibility is shifted away from a single service provider and introducing Eircode is part of this shift. However, you mustn't break the system while changing the system, as the judge thankfully realised in the above care between Comreg and An Post.
Apart from all that, it is ludicrously irrational to base the value of a residential property on the detail of how the state's incumbent postal service provider organises its deliveries. An Post or whoever ends up with the authority should have no regard for such nonsense.

markpb · 20-07-2015 5:51pm

xper wrote: »

Apart from all that, it is ludicrously irrational to base the value of a residential property on the detail of how the state's incumbent postal service provider organises its deliveries.

You do realise that this happens the world over? D4, 90210, W8. It's human nature.

moyners · 20-07-2015 6:20pm

Alias no.9's effort above inspired me to throw this together. Easy enough looking at the An Post delivery zones and checking the edges of them. The border between T34 and T56 took a while though as they're together on the delivery zones map. Feel free to flag mistakes.

Map made up from:
T12 seems to be seven delivery zones in the Cork City south area
T23 looks like the 3 North Cork City delivery zones together with the Blarney area
T56 is the Watergrasshill area
T45 is Carrigtwohill, Glounthaune and Little Island
T34 is together with T56 on the An Post delivery zones but I managed to make a rough approximation of the border between them by checking a bunch of spots on the maps and working out the delivery routes and what has to be the boundary between them.

SPDUB · 20-07-2015 7:02pm

murphaph wrote: »

Interesting. I suspected that post to these areas was being routed through these sorting offices, even though nobody in these areas has ever been told or asked to begin using these postal districts in their addresses.

Who has the authority to create/amend postal districts I wonder? Do An Post have a legal right to just "annex" somewhere like Portmarnock into D13? Could An Post change the boundaries and make D6 bigger at the expense of D4, for example? I would imagine something like that would go down like a lead balloon among the affected property owners.

Interesting about Lucan....so does mail being sent to Lucan go via the D22 sorting office like mail for Newcastle?

As far as I know Lucan still has it's own labels for mail but just that when a driver collects mail from the Dublin Mail Centre it is now the D22 driver but when it reaches the delivery office building it is moved to it's own section of the building

By running it as a co located office An Post has been able to reduce the number of vans and trucks and of course jobs needed then if they were in separate premises

D10/D20 have been co located for a number of years with separate collection points for members of the public coming to pick up their post

I presume Lucan has a separate collection point as well

moyners · 21-07-2015 2:03pm

Cork 'T' eircodes from post above done on Google maps

https://goo.gl/maps/zDCmY

plodder · 21-07-2015 3:25pm

What would the population of those areas be? Close to 100,000 each probably. Compare with A41 in North County Dublin. Population is 400 households (probably less than 1,000 people). Extraordinary disparity.

OU812 · 21-07-2015 4:25pm

This thing is gonna be totally cracked inside three months.

They really should have had more than 139 keys though. Something like this should be as granular as possible.

Aimead · 28-07-2015 2:53pm

moyners · 28-07-2015 2:56pm

Aimead wrote: »

I’m much more at home with chan sites and other places where, shall we say, moderation is done with a lighter hand. Boards.ie isn’t the typical place I’d post on, and I’ve been putting effort into holding back the sort of invective that I’d be free to post elsewhere.

But, in this case, I’m going to make a bit of an exception and call you out for peddling a wilful and disingenuous strawman (not the first one either).

Suppose someone gave you the following (making these up):
T23 UUUU
T23 VVVV
T23 WWWW
T23 XXXX
T23 YYYY
T23 ZZZZ

You wouldn’t know where they where with reference to each. Now suppose someone had given me the following:
BT56 UUU
BT56 VVV
BT56 WWW
BT56 XXX
BT56 YYY
BT56 ZZZ

I would now where they where with reference to each other. On visual inspection you can obtain useful information from the postcode that you do not obtain from Eircode. This point isn’t new and has been made multiple times in this thread. So why are you being deliberately disingenuous when the point being made is clear? You know that the routing boundaries are currently not known, and you know that it isn’t possible to tell where within a boundary a given Eircode is on visual inspection. To borrow your own phrase, isn’t a bit pathetic that an old code from the 60’s outperforms the supposedly modern Eircode in this scenario?

To put it simply – if you really believe in the veracity of your defence of Eircode, then why do you continually play dumb as you have done so above?

Think that reply was meant for the "National Postcodes to be introduced" thread?

L'Enfer du Nord · 31-07-2015 6:45pm

xper wrote: »

Since the postal areas were, surprise, surprise, entirely devised by and for the sole use of the forerunner of An Post, it should be no surprise that they exercise the right to enforce or amend them.
Now, as we head into the world of demonopolised delivery services, it is appropriate that responsibility is shifted away from a single service provider and introducing Eircode is part of this shift. However, you mustn't break the system while changing the system, as the judge thankfully realised in the above care between Comreg and An Post.
Apart from all that, it is ludicrously irrational to base the value of a residential property on the detail of how the state's incumbent postal service provider organises its deliveries. An Post or whoever ends up with the authority should have no regard for such nonsense.

If you are not interested in the possible resale value the logical place to buy a property is in a less desirable post code on the border with a desirable one. My home is about 100 metres from a border. When I was bidding for the place I looked at similar properties nearby in order to set a limit, and since I had my heart set on the place I reasoned that if I didn't get it I'd try to get some where similar. All the similar places near by were asking at least 20% more, couldn't understand it until I realised they were in a different post code.

Its nonsense on the one hand but on the other it really does effect the value of a property. You and I may feel we are above postcode snobbery but like it or not the market isn't.

Geuze · 07-08-2024 1:18pm

Where is E42 routing key area?

It is not on this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Eircode_routing_areas_in_Ireland

Sam Russell · 07-08-2024 4:03pm

Mod: This is a very old thread, which should stay closed.

Eircode Routing Keys

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