Irish Vehicle Registration Plates


Irish Vehicle Registration Plates - Definition

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an Irish number plate

Number plates in the Republic of Ireland conform to the European standard, with a blue band, 12 stars of the European flag and country identifier. Until 1987 a British system of identifiers was used in all of the island of Ireland, i.e. both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The numbers on a plate follow the following format reading from left to right:

A two-digit year identifier.
A one- or two-letter county identifier.
A sequence number, starting with 1.

Contents

1 County Identifier

2 Statutory Instruments

3 List of County Identifiers

4 External links

County Identifier

In some cases the county identifier refers to the administrative county, for instance the two administrative counties of County Tipperary. In most cases it refers to the historic county, including the city and county where appropriate. Whilst in other cases there is a separate county and city code.

Typically, a populous area with many registrations has a one-letter code, with others getting two letter codes. The general rule for two-letter codes is the initial letter of the county name is used, followed the final letter. In all cases the English spelling of the county is used to derive codes.

Statutory Instruments

The original statutory instrument was given in 1986 in the Irish Statute Book, later in 1992 new specification was released with the most recent specification released in 1999. The original specification gives the codes as well as the (administrative/historic) county in English whilst the latter two specifications give the county or city in Irish and are often quite ambiguous in stating the other characteristics discussed.

Previous statutory instruments gave the codes used from the British system used in the Republic of Ireland. These include Road Vehicles (Index Marks) Regulations, 1958 (http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZSI14Y1958.html) and Road Vehicles (Index Marks) Regulations, 1970 (http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZSI101Y1970.html). There are also many other specifications which give individual and small groups of codes amended and supplemented during this period.