Ireland’s first national postcode service, Eircode, has launched, overhauling the country’s current postal tagging system and replacing it with what is hoped will be a more accurate way of finding addresses.
Today’s creation will see more than 2m homes and businesses around Ireland given a new seven-digit code, doing away with the previous system that, according to the Department of Communications, sees 35pc of Irish addresses shared between at least two properties.
Under the new system, your seven-digit code will be broken into two parts. The first three digits will be location identifiers, with the final four being unique codes to every property.
The location identifiers will mirror many current postcodes. So in Dublin, for example, a home in Dublin 1 will start its new seven-digit code with D01, with four unique letters and numbers to follow.
You can find your Eircode here, with Twitter already awash with confusion, disgust, warnings and, of course, humour…
Watching all the Irish on my timeline battle #eircode makes me happy that despite it being in Korean, Korea’s postcode system is easy…
— Emmet (@Mr_Emmet) July 13, 2015
Limerick? News to me… #eircode pic.twitter.com/7N1UYiDcNe — Gavin Sheridan (@gavinsblog) July 13, 2015
#eircode directions to my house … drive to Dundalk ….turn left ….. drive through two counties until you get to the right one #pathetic
— Dermot Kennedy (@DermoKennedy) July 13, 2015
The awkward moment when #Eircode gets your county wrong — Éamonn (@EamSwe) July 13, 2015
@newschambers sweet Jebus I’ve just realised my #eircode suggests I’m from Cavan. Not only wrong county but wrong province! #notimpressed
— kathryn cooke (@kheery24) July 13, 2015
Must point out to people that #eircode is classed as #personaldata so take care tweeting yours or others! — Daragh O Brien (@daraghobrien) July 13, 2015
@saloreilly #eircode has special #dataprotection legislation that defines it as personal data. No other identifying data on search site. — Daragh O Brien (@daraghobrien) July 13, 2015
Anyone have the #Eircode for those electronic voting machines? — David Wall (@davidfwall) July 13, 2015
The #eircode for Coppers is amazing!! pic.twitter.com/XXyxHAeN1N — jar.ie (@jar_ie) July 13, 2015
This seems an opportune moment for the #Eircode self description: “Not currently best international practice” pic.twitter.com/E0WrqdzP5T — Simon McGarr (@Tupp_Ed) July 13, 2015
Not sure my Eircode thing is working properly #eircode pic.twitter.com/4dkpLEzSDy — Andrew Mangan (@andrewmanganVO) July 13, 2015
BREAKING: Government denies #eircode system will be able to remove money hidden in your house to pay for #irishwater. ‘We’d never do that!’
— Garvan Grant (@garvangrant) July 13, 2015
Main image via Shutterstock
