Roads in Ireland

Roads In Ireland

The island of Ireland, comprising Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, has an extensive network of tens of thousands of kilometres of public roads, usually surfaced. These roads have been developed and modernised over centuries, from trackways suitable only for walkers and horses, to surfaced roads including modern motorways. Northern Ireland has had motorways since 1962, and has a well-developed network of primary, secondary and local routes. Historically, the road network in the Republic of Ireland was less well developed and maintained. However, with the advent of the Celtic Tiger and significant European Union funding, most national roads in the Republic continue to be upgraded. In the 1990s the Republic went from having only a few short sections of motorway to constructing motorways, dual-carriageways and other improvements on most major routes as part of a National Development Plan. Road construction in Northern Ireland has proceeded at a slower pace in recent years, although a number of important bypasses and upgrades to dual carriageway have recently been completed or are about to begin.

The major differences between roads in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are in road quality and route classification, signposts and speed limits.

Roads in Northern Ireland are classified as either motorways (shown by the letter M followed by a route number, e.g. M1), A-roads (shown by the letter A followed by a route number, e.g. A6), B-roads (shown by the letter B followed by a route number, e.g. B135) and other roads. There are two types of A-roads: primary and non-primary. Roads in the Republic are classified as either motorways (shown by the letter M followed by a route number, e.g. M7), National roads (shown by the letter N followed by a route number, e.g. N25), Regional roads (shown by the letter R followed by a route number, e.g. R611) and Local roads (shown by the letter L followed by a route number, e.g. L4202). There are two types of National roads: National Primary routes and National Secondary routes.

Distance signposts in Northern Ireland show distances in miles, while all signposts placed in the Republic since the 1990s use kilometres. The Republic's road signs are bilingual, using both official languages, Irish and English. The Irish names are written in lower case italic script. Signs in Northern Ireland are in English only. Warning signs in the Republic have a yellow background and are diamond-shaped, those in Northern Ireland are triangle-shaped and have a white background with a red border.

Speed limits in Northern Ireland are specified in miles per hour. Those in the Republic use kilometres per hour (km/h or kph), a change introduced on 20 January 2005. This involved the provision of 58,000 new metric speed limit signs, replacing and supplementing 35,000 imperial signs.