This article describes how Irish addresses are constructed, the difference between a postal & geographic address, and how Eircode fits in.
How are Irish addresses constructed?
In general, an Irish address follows either a Hierarchical Format or Proximity Format as illustrated below:
| HIERARCHICAL | PROXIMITY |
|---|---|
| 101 Tailteann Close Windtown (in) Navan (in) Co. Meath (in) | Staffordstown Garlow Cross (near) Navan (near) Co. Meath (in) |
Hierarchical Format is most common for urban addresses, Proximity Format for rural addresses. Hierarchical addresses are pretty straight-forward, in our example you will find Tailteann Close if you go to the Windtown area of Navan. Staffordstown however isn’t “in” anywhere other than Co. Meath, so additional address lines are provided to help locate the address. If you go to Garlow Cross outside Navan you should be close to Staffordstown, but it isn’t an instruction to go to Navan first then to Garlow Cross. This is just a general rule and addresses can have a mixture of Hierarchy and Proximity, with Proximity often indicating an address is on a road or can be accessed by a road as shown in Examples A and B below:
| EXAMPLE A | EXAMPLE B | EXAMPLE C |
|---|---|---|
| 101 Saint Patricks Park Athboy Road (off) Navan (in) Co. Meath (in) | 101 Summerville Apartments Convent Road (on) Navan (in) Co. Meath (in) | Dunroamin Fancroft (in) Roscrea (near) Co. Offaly (in) |
In Example C, Fancoft is in Co. Offaly but its nearest town is Roscrea which is in Co. Tipperary. There are 258 of these “border” towns that appear in addresses and can cause confusion for the unfamiliar as they wonder why the address says Roscrea, Co. Offaly when they know Roscrea is in Co. Tipperary. Where people really get confused and start to complain, is if they see a version of their address that unexpectedly uses an additional Proximity element such as Navan in the following example:
| EXPECTED | UNEXPECTED |
|---|---|
| 101 Kilmessan Road Kilmessan (in) Co. Meath (in) | 101 Kilmessan Road Kilmessan (in) Navan (via) Co. Meath (in) |
The inclusion of an additional Proximity element in an address, e.g. Navan, can confuse delivery drivers and service engineers, leading to the annoying phone call:
Hi, I’m in Navan, whereabouts is Kilmessan Road?
What is a postal address?
The term “Postal Address” refers to a delivery address as defined by Irish Standard – I.S. EN 14142-1:2011 (Postal services. Address databases), as operated by the Universal Service Provider, An Post. This is the address that is created and assigned by An Post and is what they recommend for the purpose of mail delivery. An Post delivers over 3 million items a day and relies on mail being accurately sorted to the correct post town, thus they strongly recommend using the Postal Address to avoid delay, misdelivery, or non-delivery of mail.
Postal addresses may include a post town or county that is not part of the geographic address as it is based on the route mail travels to arrive at the location. Postal Addresses as supplied in Eircode Address Database have the following properties:
- Dublin locality names (e.g. Christchurch) have been removed.
The name of the locality or second thoroughfare is included in the address where it is necessary to distinguish between two or more streets in the same postal district. - Generally contain the Post Town
For example, the Postal Address for Slane in Meath is Slane, Navan, Co. Meath rather than just Slane, Co. Meath as Navan is the Post Town for Slane. - Contain the County name of their Post Town
If the Post Town is in a different county to the address, the address should be written with the Post Town County, not the County in which the address is located. - No abbreviations
Postal Address does not contain any abbreviations and An Post recommends that you use the full spelling when addressing a mail piece, for example, Road not Rd. - They are all UPPER CASE
Note: Autoaddress proper cases these addresses in its products.
What is a geographic address?
This is essentially the Postal Address but with a couple of important tweaks.
- The Post Town element is removed if it is only required for Postal purposes
- The County is always the geographic County of the address
You can see the differences in the examples below:
| POSTAL | GEOGRAPHIC |
|---|---|
| Kilmessan Navan Co. Meath | Kilmessan Co. Meath |
| Fancroft Roscrea Co. Tipperary | Fancroft Roscrea Co. Offaly |
Address inconsistency
We have analysed the way people actually write their address for every thoroughfare and townland in Ireland and it often differs from the Geographic Address. To give a specific example, here are the ways in which we see addresses that have a Geographic Address (which in this case is the same as the Postal Address) of Woodlands Road, Glenageary, Co. Dublin.
| Percentage | Address |
|---|---|
| 75% | Woodlands Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin |
| 22% | Woodlands Road, Cabinteely, Dublin 18 |
| 3% | Woodlands Road, Rochestown Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin |
Nobody uses the Geographic/Postal address of Woodlands Road, Glenageary, Co. Dublin, the most common is Woodlands Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin as this is how it is written 75% of the time. We include all these variations in our alias database, and show this most common version of the address in autocomplete if you choose Vanity addresses rather than Geographic addresses for Ireland.
Where does Eircode fit in?
Unlike other postcode systems, each Eircode is unique to a single address. Whether an address is written as postal, geographic or any other variation, once you have the Eircode you can uniquely identify the address.
About one-third of addresses in the country are not unique. In rural areas prior to Eircode that meant relying on local knowledge or hoping the delivery person knew where to go. Eircode changed all of that. Now, every property–whether it’s a cottage in the hills, a semi-detached house in a housing estate, or a farmyard in the middle of nowhere–has its own unique Eircode. No more guessing. No more delays.
