Dublin postal districts

Dublin postal districts are used by Ireland's postal service, known as An Post, to sort mail in the Dublin area, This system is similar to that used in London and other UK cities before the advent of the postcode. The postal district appears with one or two digits appearing at the end of addresses, e.g:

Odd numbers are used for addresses on the Northside of the River Liffey, while even numbers are on addresses on the Southside. In 1985, Dublin 6 was split, with some areas, such as Templeogue, Kimmage and Terenure becoming part of a new district, called Dublin 6W; residents of some areas, citing property devaluation, objected to the proposed amalgamation of their areas with those they considered to be less valuable.

These numbers appear on most street signs in Dublin, next to the name of the street in English and Irish, hence the 'MERRION ROAD' (Bóthar Mhuirfean) street sign will display the digit '4'. In Cork, there are also numbered districts, eg: the 'PATRICK STREET' (Sráid Phádraig) sign will display the digit '1', but these are not encountered in postal addresses.

Similar schemes were used in cities in other European countries until they adopted a national postal code system in the 1960s and '70s. However, Ireland did not follow suit, and An Post did not introduce automated sorting machines for mail until the 1990s. By then, the introduction of new technology, known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR), meant that machines could 'read' whole addresses as opposed to just postcodes. An Post argues that a national postcode system is unnecessary describing it as 'a 1960s solution to a 21st century problem'. Consequently, mail to addresses in the rest of the Republic does not require any digits after the address, eg:

However, the Communications Regulator in Ireland is considering the introduction of such a system in the light of the liberalisation of postal services, and the end of An Post's monopoly.

See also

• List of Dublin postal districts