Dublin postal districts have been used by Ireland's postal service, known as An Post, to sort mail in Dublin. The system is similar to that used in cities in Europe and North America until they adopted national postal code systems in the 1960s and 1970s. These were incorporated into a new national postcode system, known as Eircode, which was implemented in 2015.[1][2] Under the Eircode system, the city is covered by the original routing areas D01 to D24, along with A## and K## codes for locations elsewhere in County Dublin.[3]
The green Leeson Street nameplate predates postal districts. The newer blue Hatch Street nameplate indicates the district is Dublin 2.
The postal district system was introduced in 1917 by the British government, as a practical way to organise local postal distribution.[4] This followed the example of other cities, including London, first subdivided into ten districts in 1857,[5] and Liverpool, the first city in Britain or Ireland to have postcodes, from 1864. The letter "D" was assigned to designate Dublin[6] and was retained by the new Irish government.[5]
Dublin didn't start using postal district numbers until 1927[7]:371 when the Department of Posts and Telegraphs initiated a scheme that requested senders to add a code to each address in Dublin City and suburbs. When mail was addressed in English senders were to add an appropriate postman's walk number but when addressed in Irish, different letters were used with the same walk numbers, such as Rathgar Road being D3 on mail addresses in English but S3 on Irish addressed mail.[8] This scheme was not popular and within a few years became defunct. In 1961, a new postal district numbers started and these numbers were added to street signs[5] prior to which street signs only displayed the street name in Irish and English.
The number of districts was increased as the city grew, and in the 1970s, large districts were subdivided. Dublin 5 was split, with the coastal part retaining the "5" and the inland part becoming Dublin 17. Dublin 8, Ballyfermot became Dublin 10, along with Palmerstown and Chapelizod. However, Dublin 10 was subsequently split again, with Palmerstown and Chapelizod forming Dublin 20.[9]
In 1985, Dublin 6 was divided, with some areas, such as Templeogue, Kimmage and Terenure becoming part of a new district in order to facilitate processing of mail by a new delivery office for those areas. Residents of some areas objected to the assignation of the next available number, "Dublin 26", for the new postal district, citing property devaluation: the higher numbered districts typically represented less affluent and less central areas.[10] An Post ultimately relented, and the western part of the district became known as Dublin 6W.[5][11]
Structure
Street sign in Dublin, displaying name of the street in Irish and English, with postal district number
Historically, the postal district appeared with one or two digits (or in the case of one district, a digit and a letter) at the end of addresses:
Sample Address, Sample Street, Dublin 8
Under the Eircode postcode system, the postal district number is still retained in Dublin addresses, even though this information is also contained in the "Locator code" portion of the Eircode postcodes, e.g.:
Sample Address, Sample Street, Dublin 8, D08 1X2Y
In most cases, odd numbers are used for addresses on the Northside of the River Liffey, while even numbers are on addresses on the Southside. Exceptions to this are the Phoenix Park (along with a small area between the Park and the River Liffey), and Chapelizod Village which, although on the Northside, are parts of the Dublin 8 and Dublin 20 postal districts respectively.[5]
Dublin 11 includes most of Ballymun west of Ballymun Road (Sillogue, Balcurris, Balbutcher, Poppintree, Sandyhill and Wadelai), Dubber Cross, Finglas (including Ballygall and Cappagh), most of Glasnevin (Cremore, Addison, Violet Hill, Finglas Road, Old Finglas Road and Glasnevin Cemetery), Kilshane Cross, The Ward and Coolquay.
These areas do not fall inside the historic Dublin postal districts and their postal routing keys came about through the new Eircode system. This is because many of these suburbs and towns fell outside the purview of Dublin city in the past. Today, they form part of "A" and "K" Dublin Eircode areas. There are 12 of these districts in total. Notable locales include Blackrock, Dún Laoghaire, Malahide, Swords, Lucan, Rush and Skerries. While a small part of Bray lies in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, for mailing purposes, the entirety of Bray is in County Wicklow's A98 routing area.
On 8 October 2013, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte announced a postcode system for the entire country.[17] This came into effect during 2015 and gave an individual post code to every address in Ireland.[2] The pre-existing Dublin district numbers are a component of the full postcode for relevant addresses, forming part of the routing code, the first three characters of the code. For example, a code for an address in Dublin 1 would start with D01, followed by four characters, hence Dublin D01 B2CD.[18]
Marketing
The districts are sometimes used in a manner similar to the sub-districts of the London postal district whereby they replace a placename. A property might be described as being "in D4", for example.[19] This public awareness of Dublin postal districts allows occasional use in marketing. Dublin n is usually abbreviated to Dn, with examples including the "D7 Restaurant", "Dtwo" nightclub, or "D4 Hotels".[20]
Finglas is a northwestern outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It lies close to Junction 5 of the M50 motorway, and the N2 road. Nearby suburbs include Glasnevin and Ballymun; Dublin Airport is seven km (4.3 mi) to the north. Finglas lies mainly in the postal district of Dublin 11.
A postal code is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal address for the purpose of sorting mail.
Postal codes used in the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the General Post Office. A full postcode is known as a "postcode unit" and designates an area with several addresses or a single major delivery point.
Dublin 4, also rendered as D4 and D04, is a historic postal district of Dublin, Ireland including Baggot Street Upper, the southernmost fringes of the Dublin Docklands, and the suburbs of Ballsbridge, Donnybrook, Irishtown, Merrion, Ringsend and Sandymount, on the Southside of Dublin. Most of the area was known as Pembroke Township until 1930 when it was absorbed by the City and County Borough of Dublin.
The Northside in an informal but commonly used term to describe the part of the city of Dublin that lies to the north of the River Liffey, and extending into part of North County Dublin. The part outside the city is within the county of Fingal, a local government area established in 1994. While it is sometimes regarded as less wealthy than the city's Southside, the Northside was originally the home of the city's upper classes and the more privileged of the two. Today, some of the wealthiest areas in Ireland, such as Malahide, Howth, Clontarf, and Castleknock, lie north of the river.
The Southside is the part of Dublin city that lies south of the River Liffey. It is an informal but commonly used term. In comparison to the city's Northside, it has historically been regarded as wealthier and more privileged, with several notable exceptions.
Ballymun is an outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland, at the northern edge of the Northside, the green-field development of which began in the 1960s to accommodate a housing crisis in inner city areas of Dublin. While the newly built housing was state-of-the-art at the time, comprising high-rise tower blocks and flat complexes, residents were moved in years before shops, schools and other infrastructure were fully ready, and the area became well known for both a strong community spirit and considerable social challenges. Ballymun has several sub-districts such as Sillogue, Coultry, Shangan and Poppintree, and is close to both the Republic of Ireland's only IKEA store and to Dublin Airport. The area is the source of one Dublin river, and parts lie in the floodplain of another, and there are a number of parks.
Ballyfermot is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is located seven kilometres west of the city centre, south of Phoenix Park. It is bordered by Chapelizod on the north, by Bluebell on the south, by Inchicore on the east, and by Palmerstown and Clondalkin on the west. The River Liffey lies to the north, and the Grand Canal, now a recreational waterway, lies to the south of Ballyfermot. Ballyfermont lies within the postal district Dublin 10. Cherry Orchard, which is also a suburb, is sometimes considered to be within Ballyfermot.
Terenure, originally called Roundtown, is a middle class suburb of Dublin in Ireland. It is located in the city's D6 and D6W postal districts. The population of all electoral divisions labelled as Terenure was 17,972 as of the 2022 census.
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along with other identifiers such as house or apartment numbers and organization name. Some addresses also contain special codes, such as a postal code, to make identification easier and aid in the routing of mail.
Palmerstown is a civil parish and suburb in western Dublin on the banks of the River Liffey. It forms part of the South Dublin local authority and the Dublin Mid-West parliamentary constituency. The area is bordered to the north by the River Liffey and the Strawberry Beds, to the west by Lucan, to the south-west by Clondalkin, to the south by Ballyfermot and to the east by the village of Chapelizod. Palmerstown village is situated near the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre. The area is situated near the major junction of the M50 motorway and the N4. It lies approximately 7 km west of O'Connell Street in Dublin city centre. The Old Lucan Road, once the main route from the city to the west, passes through the centre of Palmerstown village.
Dublin 2, also rendered as D2 and D02, is a historic postal district on the southside of Dublin, Ireland. In the 1960s, this central district became a focus for office development. More recently, it became a focus for urban residential development. The district saw some of the heaviest fighting during Ireland's Easter Rising.
A postal address in Ireland is a place of delivery defined by Irish Standard (IS) EN 14142-1:2011 and serviced by the universal service provider, An Post. Its addressing guides comply with the guidelines of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the United Nations-affiliated body responsible for promoting standards in the postal industry, across the world.
Dublin 8, also rendered as D8 and D08, is a historic postal district in Dublin. D8 is one of only two postal districts to span the River Liffey. While the majority of the code's built up areas are on the southside, it also includes northside areas such as the vast Phoenix Park. A 2018 article in The Irish Times noted that, while the area was historically known for the manufacture of silk and wool, Dublin 8's "streets, alleys and quaysides are [now] replete with hipster cafes, cocktail bars and family-friendly restaurants".
Dublin 15, also rendered as D15, is a postal district in the suburbs of Dublin in Fingal, Ireland. It is 11 km (6.8 mi) west of the GPO in Dublin city.
Dublin 1, also rendered as D1 and D01, is a historic postal district on the northside of Dublin, Ireland.
↑ "Dubliners go postal over the right address". Irish Independent. Independent News & Media. 19 July 2015. The new regime does not yet seem to spell the end for the postal district numbering system [..] drawn up under British rule in 1917
1 2 3 4 5 6 "Dublin's vanishing postal districts". Irish Times. 16 March 2015. The postal districts in Dublin date back to 1917, when they were also introduced in cross- channel cities. Postal districts had started in London in 1857 [..] Dublin didn't start using postal district numbers until 1961, as reflected in the old green street nameplates
↑ Moore, Robert (2011). ""If I Actually Talked Like That, I'd Pull a Gun on Myself": Accent, Avoidance, and Moral Panic in Irish English". Anthropological Quarterly. 84 (1): 41–64. doi:10.1353/anq.2011.0014. JSTOR41237479. S2CID1097733.
↑ Note: Most of the civil parish of Artaine – the townlands of Artaine South, Artaine West and Puckstown – lies within Dublin 9.
↑ "Frequently Asked Questions". eircode.ie. Eircode. Retrieved 12 April 2019. The existing established Dublin Postal Districts 1 to 24 and 6W are being retained in the Routing Key as D01 to D24
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