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How to drive in Ireland – Road signs — 29 Comments

  1. Naturally, of course, there are instances of missing signs. Now, I don’t mean signs that have been robbed for the wall of a pub (I’m waiting for the day I walk into a pub and find a full-size, blue-coloured who’s-allowed-on-the-motorway one). I mean those signs that might actually would have been useful, and therefore were excluded from consideration.

    In particular, signs are frequently not found before roundabouts, but instead a you’ve-just-missed-your-turn sign is found after the exit. I guess without this arrangement we’d not be able to lure tourists into our traps?

  2. Andrew – The ones I like are the huge ones – You drive off the ferry in Dun Laoire and follow the signs to Cork…. They dump you in the middle of Dublin and not a signpost to be seen anywhere!

  3. If you ever end up in Tipperary county, especially around the Cappagh White area then you won’t see any signs at all.

    I think it might be because it is a tourist culling hotspot.

  4. Robert – I’m not too familiar with the Cappagh White area. The general method is that all signs to all locations will bring you to an area where the signs disappear. That is the classic tourist trap. So it looks like Cappagh White may well be one.

  5. Hi Grannymar – we really can’t go on meeting like this!

    Grandad – At last I’ve met someone else who spells Dún Laoghaire as it really sounds – Dun Laoire. I can never get my head around Irish spellings despite having the Irish language shoved down my throat in school.

    My father never learnt any Irish and always jokingly referred to the place as Dune-Locka-Hair 🙂

  6. I love those ones that say “Road Closed: Local Traffic Only.”

    The road is NEVER closed and you can ALWAYS go on your way without fear. Tis a great country surely.

  7. We have to be the worst country in the world for road signs, you can drive for miles and miles without seeing any signs.

  8. Nonny where are you driving at the moment?

    Is that a German flag?

    Steph come back! the ould fella has gone asleep

  9. I love some of the odd signs that are around the place here. Like “Warning, Experimental Road Markings Ahead” ??

    One in Carlow has “Warning, Blind Person Crossing” and a few hundred yards down the road is another warning about wheelchairs crossing.

    Then there are lots of “Wrong Way, Turn Back” signs.

    Also like Terence said about the local traffic only signs, you can indeed ignore them as more than likely they have been left up despite any roadworks having been completed months previously.

  10. I’m still here Grannymar!

    Yes – I was wondering that too about Nonny – is that a German/Belgian flag?

  11. Did you hear the one about ‘life being a sh*t sandwich’?

    The more bread you have,
    the less sh*t you have to eat

    Sad, but true 😉

  12. What about “Danger – Heavy Plant Crossing”?

    I’m still waiting to see an oak wandering across the road….

  13. There’s a great pair of signs on the Dingle peninsula. They point in opposite directions – both for Dingle.

  14. Whatever happened to Fir ag Obair?

    Have all men stopped working?

    But then when did they ever….

  15. I like the one with the car falling off a pier into the sea. It means if you drive your car off the end of a pier it’ll fall into the sea.

    You learn something new and useful every day…

  16. Caro – Signs do have their uses. If you had driven off the end of a pier, you’d have wondered why you got wet…..

  17. No Trough Road

    And a beauty, just sent in by Andrew!!

    As he says – “Seems the local council has something against farm animals.”

  18. you admired my morris minor the last day i talked[wrote?]to you well since following your driving lessons on line my driving has improved so much as has my confidence in my driving abilities.poor minor has had to have a few sessions with the car vet but that was due to my misinterpreting the signs…maybe i should have waited for todays lesson before venturing out.but i await the next lesson with much anticipation

  19. Grannymar my old pad is in Kildare but I have recently bought back in the Capital. You could drive for miles and miles in Kildare and not know where you are at all.

  20. Cooper – I’m glad my little lessons are of some use. I might have more to come.

    Nonny – Are you sure you moved to the right house? Do your neighbours say ‘ya’ and ‘nein’ a lot?

  21. ha ha no they are all OLD and say things like “Nonny love will you go the shop for me? go on sweatheart you’ve youth on your side”

  22. Love the articles about the signs. Am sending in the picture of the Trough sign to the Words that Confuse section of Lowlands Listserve.

    Has anyone got a picture of the now defunct “Road Up” signs of old? Can you email me them if you have?

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