Ireland

Ireland has long, white licence plates with the standard European blue strip on the left.

The white backplate is especially useful to distinguish it from the UK, which uses yellow backplates (but white fronts). In addition, most UK vehicles lack the blue strip on the left.

It is very common to see yellow outside dashes on Irish roads.

NOTE: This is essentially never found in the UK. These dashes can also be seen in New Zealand.

You will usually find cream white buildings with black roofs in Ireland. Sometimes, the buildings feature grey corner stones. In cities, you will typically find row buildings.

NOTE: British style brick buildings can still be found in Ireland.

Ireland is the only European country that uses yellow diamond-shaped warning signs.

Note that this only applies to warning signs. Regulatory signs (circles and upside down triangles) have the normal red border and white background, like most other European countries.

Irish signage is often bilingual, with English in a regular font, and Irish in italics. Place names, regular words and phrases are all translated.

Irish language is somewhat less common on non-official signage.

Irish chevrons are yellow on black. Both single and multiple arrows are common.

NOTE: UK chevrons are white on black.

The yellow warning stickers on utility poles can be a good way to distinguish between Ireland and the UK.

The most important difference is that UK stickers feature a guy getting zapped by a lightning bolt. 

The Irish stickers usually have a lightning bolt, but lack the guy getting zapped. They also often have an extra second rectangular sticker with a black outline, below the lightning bolt.

Irish yield signs feature the word “YIELD”.

NOTE: UK yield signs have the phrase “GIVE WAY”.

These green and white bollards can be a good clue for Ireland. They are not entirely unique to the country, but they are especially helpful in 50-50s with the UK.

Rural metal gates with rounded corners are very common in Ireland. 

NOTE: This is mainly useful to distinguish it from the UK, where similar gates typically have square corners. However, gates in Northern Ireland also typically have rounded corners.

You will often see a strip of grass in the middle of tiny rural roads. Such roads are called “boreens”. While not unique, these boreens can often be a strong clue in a tough 50-50 between Ireland and the UK.

Ireland and the UK drive on the left side of the road.

NOTE: The only other European country with coverage that drives on the left is Malta, but landscape should be sufficient to tell it apart.

Most of Ireland is dominated by a very green, agricultural landscape, with lots of hedgerows next to the roads and dividing the fields.

This type of landscape is also common in many parts of the UK, and can be virtually indistinguishable from Ireland.

Both Ireland and the UK use wooden utility poles. Pole steps bolted on the side of the pole are very common. These pole steps are shaped like a series of thin horizontal metal rods.

In and around urban areas, you will sometimes encounter double yellow road lines on the sides of marked roads. These indicate a no parking zone, and are also very common in the UK. They are not really found anywhere else in Europe apart from Malta, but landscape should be sufficient to tell it apart.

Pedestrian crossing signs are somewhat rare in Ireland. They are yellow and diamond-shaped, like other road signs.

Instead of pedestrian signs, you will often see these black and white signposts with a yellow bulb on top.

Note that the UK uses exactly the same signposts.

Irish regional roads have 3-digit road numbers. The first digit of these road numbers gives you a general region within the country (see the infographic).

A good mnemonic to remember the rough location of each region: the numbers go in an anti-clockwise direction around the island, starting in Dublin.

Two important notes: 

• There is some overlap between numbers at the borders of each region, as well as some rare exceptions

• Roads starting with 8 or 9 are newer roads that are mostly not limited to a certain region (though about half of the 8s are in the Dublin metro area).

Irish phone numbers start with a two digit area code. The area codes are grouped geographically by first digit, and are therefore very learnable.

Ireland’s west coast is defined by a rugged, hilly landscape. Steep hills and low mountains dominate. The neat fields of the east make way for wild grass- and moorlands. The grass often has more brownish and yellow tones to it. Sometimes you will be able to see exposed rocks.

If a very small rural road has Generation 4 coverage and is located in an unusually hilly landscape, you are likely to be in Donegal.

Note that this meta only applies to the smallest roads: thin, without road lines, and sometimes with grass in the middle. This type of coverage is also not exclusive to Donegal, it is just likely to be there.

One noteworthy area in the east is the Wicklow Mountains, just south of Dublin. They can look deceptively similar to the western coastal mountains. It can be very hard, if not downright impossible to distinguish these two areas.

Two things to look out for:

• You will never see the coast from the Wicklow mountains.

• Like Donegal, its small roads are mostly covered with Generation 4 instead of the Generation 2 that is more typically associated with small roads in the west.

An electrical vehicle (EV) with a Generation 4 camera was used to cover most of Eastern Ireland and parts of the Northwest. The back of the EV is visible in all this coverage: it is grey with a black semicircle.

Note that not all Generation 4 coverage in and around Dublin is made with this car. A considerable amount still has the regular blue Generation 4 car.

In the north of counties Sligo and Leitrim you can find distinctive tabletop mountains.

Note that the mountains in the image are just an example, many of the mountains in this area have the same sort of shape.

The area in and around Burren National Park is characterised by a unique karst landscape consisting of exposed grey limestone rocks.

Cork is relatively unique in that it is significantly more hilly than the other big Irish cities.