A number plate is a number plate right? The answer is yes, a number plate is a way to identify a car; but depending on which country it is in, a number plate can look pretty different. It’s very useful information, especially if you are planning a road trip to Ireland, which from UK you would need to take a ferry first. 

This is definitely true for number plates in Ireland. They might not be that far away from us, but the difference between Irish and UK number plates is pretty vast.

Want to know more? Well, here are the main things that you need to keep in mind when it comes to Irish number plates and how they work.

Where things started

It was up until the year 1987 that Irish number plates were made up of 3 numbers and 3 letters. However, it was decided during 1987 that things needed to chance and that number plates needed to feature a brand new look.

It was decided that number plates in Ireland needed to be much easier to identify and whilst they may have made the format of the number plates on vehicles in Ireland, it was still easy to work out when and where a car was registered.

During 1987, the format for Irish number plates changed to something like 95- D-14500. The idea behind these number plates, although making them appear more complicated, was the fact that they actually made it easier to tell as much about a car as possible. All simply by looking at the number plate.

If we look at our example, then we can see that the car was registered during 1995 as the first two digits are a 9 and a 5. After that, we move to the letter that will identify where the car was registered. Each letter will relate to a county in Ireland.

After that, the number plate contains a number which is actually which number car was registered in that particular year. So, in our example, the car would have been registered in Duble during 1995 and it would have been the 14,500 car registered that year.

The 2013 changes

During 2013, it was decided that a small change needed to be made. Number plates were made that had 3 numbers to start. This number would be made up of the year (for instance 2015 would be 15) followed by either a 1 or a 2. The 1 relates to a car that was registered during January and the 2 is for those who popped up in May.

This meant that as the number of vehicles grows in the UK, so does the amount of number plates that can be used to identify them. Not only this, but whilst the number plates may look even more complicated, in actual fact they are much easier to read and also understand what they show.

It is also worth noting that at present any Irish number plates come with the Euro symbol on them, found in the top left-hand corner. This is to show that the vehicle is part of the EU and can drive on the European roads.