Vehicle Number Plates IRELAND

Gman496

Super Moderator
Staff member
Just a silly question really (only relevant to those who understand the Irish number plate system).

OK, back in '86 or whenever it was that the Irish Government changed the structure for Irish vehicle number (Registration) plates, I thought then, & still do today, that is was a great move, it made Irish number plates the easiest to read in the world (my opinion).

Most of us know how it works (Nice and simple),

1. The year of registration.

2. The first or first & last letter of the City/County it's registered/resides in.

3. The number representing the numerical sequence of sales (Ascending).

For example,

If a vehicle was bought & registered in the year 2004 in Dublin & it was the 167,251st vehicle sold, the number plate would read

04 - D - 167251


94.jpg



The criteria with regard to the letter assigned to the plate was simple too,

It would be the first letter of the residing City\County, providing that there was no other City\County starting with the same letter. If there were more than one City\County with a name starting with the same letter, one of them would be assigned the first letter and the other would be assigned two letters, the first, and the last letter of that particular City\County name.

One example of this is, Wexford & Waterford.

This posed a particular problem because both started & ended with exactly the same letters..... Well, that was no problem for Paddy either! they decided to assign the following (And it made perfect sense too).

Wexford was assigned WX

Waterford was assigned W

Sorry for the long-winded history lesson & I'm almost ready to actually ask my question.....

The Question:

Why is the registration for Sligo SO ? There is no other City\County in Ireland starting with the letter S.... so,


Why isn't the Sligo registration S ?




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Just a silly question really (only relevant to those who understand the Irish number plate system).

OK, back in '86 or whenever it was that the Irish Government changed the structure for Irish vehicle number (Registration) plates, I thought then, & still do today, that is was a great move, it made Irish number plates the easiest to read in the world (my opinion).

Most of us know how it works (Nice and simple),

1. The year of registration.

2. The first or first & last letter of the City/County it's registered/resides in.

3. The number representing the numerical sequence of sales (Ascending).

For example,

If a vehicle was bought & registered in the year 2004 in Dublin & it was the 167,251st vehicle sold, the number plate would read

04 - D - 167251


94.jpg



The criteria with regard to the letter assigned to the plate was simple too,

It would be the first letter of the residing City\County, providing that there was no other City\County starting with the same letter. If there were more than one City\County with a name starting with the same letter, one of them would be assigned the first letter and the other would be assigned two letters, the first, and the last letter of that particular City\County name.

One example of this is, Wexford & Waterford.

This posed a particular problem because both started & ended with exactly the same letters..... Well, that was no problem for Paddy either! they decided to assign the following (And it made perfect sense too).

Wexford was assigned WX

Waterford was assigned W

Sorry for the long-winded history lesson & I'm almost ready to actually ask my question.....

The Question:

Why is the registration for Sligo SO ? There is no other City\County in Ireland starting with the letter S.... so,


Why isn't the Sligo registration S ?




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The guy who makes tripple what we make overlooked it.

:grin:
 
You could argue the same for Offaly too, it is OY, but there are no other counties starting with an O.
 
i never really agreed with the introduction of the year of a car on a registration plate ,in other countries unless you are rightly clued up you wouldnt know the year of the car,my point being is that you could get a great looking car then look down at the reg and think ah sure its so many years old plus it is also the culprit for trying to keep up with the Joneses next door if you know what i mean .
 
You could argue the same for Offaly too, it is OY, but there are no other counties starting with an O.


Well, it depends on which side of the fence you are sitting on eamo?

Some say we have 26 Counties, others say 32....

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Just a silly question really (only relevant to those who understand the Irish number plate system).

OK, back in '86 or whenever it was that the Irish Government changed the structure for Irish vehicle number (Registration) plates, I thought then, & still do today, that is was a great move, it made Irish number plates the easiest to read in the world (my opinion).

Most of us know how it works (Nice and simple),

1. The year of registration.

2. The first or first & last letter of the City/County it's registered/resides in.

3. The number representing the numerical sequence of sales (Ascending).

For example,

If a vehicle was bought & registered in the year 2004 in Dublin & it was the 167,251st vehicle sold, the number plate would read

04 - D - 167251


regolate.jpg



The criteria with regard to the letter assigned to the plate was simple too,

It would be the first letter of the residing City\County, providing that there was no other City\County starting with the same letter. If there were more than one City\County with a name starting with the same letter, one of them would be assigned the first letter and the other would be assigned two letters, the first, and the last letter of that particular City\County name.

One example of this is, Wexford & Waterford.

This posed a particular problem because both started & ended with exactly the same letters..... Well, that was no problem for Paddy either! they decided to assign the following (And it made perfect sense too).

Wexford was assigned WX

Waterford was assigned W

Sorry for the long-winded history lesson & I'm almost ready to actually ask my question.....

The Question:

Why is the registration for Sligo SO ? There is no other City\County in Ireland starting with the letter S.... so,


Why isn't the Sligo registration S ?




-

very good point gman never thought of that but even with the likes of W for Waterford they also have WD in the reg for county Waterford plus you have Tipperary with TS and TN. then you also have L for Limerick but you also have LK for limerick.
 
very good point gman never thought of that but even with the likes of W for Waterford they also have WD in the reg for county Waterford plus you have Tipperary with TS and TN. then you also have L for Limerick but you also have LK for limerick.


Agreed, but in the case of "W" they use of the "D" can only be used for one county because both Wexford & Waterford begin & end with the same letters.

Wexford it the more distinctive sounding of the two, you couldn't really mistake WX for Waterford? and in so doing it freed up "D" for use in Waterford.

I think too that there was something about "Town" & "County" but I'm not fully sure about that. It was where the City would get the first letter & the County would get both the first & last letter. That might explain the Limeric situation?

As for Tip.... Geographically, Tipperary is one of the largest regions in the Country & borders so many other places, I think that situation had something to do with resources for policing (because of its size) so they decided to break it up into two sections, North & South.

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Well, it depends on which side of the fence you are sitting on eamo?

Some say we have 26 Counties, others say 32....

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G no matter whether you think there is 26 or 32 (i think 32 lol) there is still only one beginning with O biffo country
 
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