Irish Roads

Road Classes
Primary Roads
Motorways
Road Projects
Roads in Detail
The North
Items of Note

 

PRIMARY ROADS

A directory of the most important routes in the Republic of Ireland.

What's the deal again with these roads?

National roads are the backbone of the road network in the Republic, and the most important links, for example, between Dublin and other cities, are called national primary roads.

What routes are there?

Click on a route in the list below for detailed information. Destinations not served directly are in brackets with the connecting route. Points where the route joins another for a distance have the intermediate route in square brackets.

Is there a numbering scheme?

Well, they all have a prefix of N before the route number, standing for national road, or on sections of motorway, the M prefix is used to show that there are motorway restrictions. The national primary roads are numbered 1-33 and 50. These begin with single-digit routes out from Dublin, both starting in Dublin and starting along higher numbered routes. Rotating anti-clockwise around Dublin, there is the N1 and N2 heading north, the N3 and N4 heading northwest (and the N5 and N6 split from the N4 further out the country). The N7 is probably the most arterial route in Ireland, carrying traffic west/southwest to Limerick (from whence it can continue west to Kerry), and via the N8 and N9 (which diverge from the N7) to Cork and Waterford. The other primary radial route from Dublin has two digits, the N11 directly south to the southeast of Ireland.

Further two digit primary routes are arranged anti-clockwise around the rest of the country with lower numbers in the northwest, increasing through the west, southwest, south and southeast. The N13, N14, N15 and N16 are all in the northwest, the N17 and N18 (N19) run along the "Atlantic Corridor" (Limerick, Galway, Sligo) in the West of Ireland. The N20, and N21 run west/southwest and south of Limerick. The N22 and N23 are southwest in Kerry/Cork. The N24 is east of these, crossing the country from Limerick to Waterford. The N25 runs along the south of the country.

The M50 (N50) is an out of sequence allocation for the (inner) ring road of Dublin.

Route numbers higher than 25 were assigned subsequent to the initial allocation of route numbers. Routes N26 to N31, are designed to better connect ports and airports to the route network via primary routes, and are separately allocated (along with N32 and N33) in another anti-clockwise dispersement around the country as earlier two-digit routes (N26 in the northwest, N27/N28 from Cork, N29/N30 east/northeast of Waterford, N31 south of Dublin).

The N32 is an extension of the Dublin ring road east of the M1. This would usually have been an extension of the M50, but it seems that the plan all along was to have the M50 be allocated instead to the northern half of the eastern bypass of Dublin (aka the Dublin Port Tunnel). Interestingly the beginning of this route (from the M1/M50 interchange) is under motorway restrictions (but using the N32 designation rather than M32) until the first roundabout junction east of the interchange.

The N33 links the N2 and M1 near Ardee, providing a useful link between the two. However, the shortcut used by those travelling north on the N2 is a regional road just a tad south of this where the N2 and M1 are even closer together.

© Copyright 2006 Conal Watterson