Postal Address

An Post, the Universal Service Provider, has prompted postal users to use the addressing format required to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of the postal service. Their addressing guides comply with the Universal Postal Union’s (UPU) (the United Nations body responsible for promoting standards in the postal industry across the World) addressing guidelines. The postal address as defined by Irish Standard - I.S. EN 14142-1:2011 (Postal services. Address databases), as operated by the Universal Service Provider, An Post., is the format used in the ECAD.

The Postal Address is made up of a number of parts as outlined in the table below.

Address Parts Department Organisation

Sub Building Name (e.g. ‘Flat 1’) Building Name (e.g. ‘Rose Cottage’) Building Number (e.g. 22)

Building Group (e.g. ‘Marian Terrace’) Primary Thoroughfare (e.g. ‘Griffith Road’) Secondary Thoroughfare (e.g. Navan Road’)

Primary Locality (e.g. ‘Cookstown Industrial Estate’) Secondary Locality (e.g. ‘Manorhamilton’)

Post Town (e.g. ‘Dublin 14’) Post County (e.g. ‘Cork’) Eircode (e.g. ‘A65R2AF’)

There are twelve possible address parts but no Postal Address contains more than eight address lines. A set of rules is applied to the twelve possible address parts to construct an

address with a maximum of eight lines plus a line for the Eircode. The results are stored in the POSTAL_ADDRESS table as described in 1.7.1.

1.9.1 Address Elements & Rules for Construction Department

The department or division within an organisation. If the department element exists, then the organisation must also exist.

Field in ECAD Fictional Example

Department ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT Organisation ENERGY FOR YOU

Sub Building UNIT 8

Building MIDDLETON CENTRE

Primary Thoroughfare MAIN STREET

Post Town TRIM

Post County MEATH

Postcode T22 FNT4

Organisation

The name of an organisation, commercial or non-commercial.

Field in ECAD Fictional Example Organisation OAK TREE LIMITED Primary Thoroughfare SAINT ANDREW STREET

Post Town DUBLIN 1

Postcode T22 FNT4

Sub-Building

The sub-building refers to an apartment, flat or unit within a building.

Field in ECAD Fictional Example Sub Building APARTMENT 114

Building THE MIDDLETON Primary Thoroughfare MAIN STREET

Post Town TRIM

Post County MEATH

Postcode T22 FNT4

Building Name

The name given to the building. Prepended by sub building, if any, when the sub building does not appear on a line to itself. The building name is omitted if it is the same as either the Organisation or Building Group.

Building Number

A number associated with the whole building. The building number may have a numeric and an alphanumeric component, which are concatenated e.g. 2A, or alternatively will have a simple building number or a complex building number. The building number always relates to the whole building and not a sub-unit within it.

A complex building number may be one of the following:

Dual

Two number separated by '/' e.g. 63/64 = 63, 64 Sequence

An odd or even sequence of numbers with lower and upper bound separated by an underscore '_' e.g. 1_5 = 1,3,5 and 2_6 = 2,4,6

Range

A range of consecutive numbers with lower and upper bound separated by a dash '-' e.g. 63-66 = 63, 64, 56, 66

The building number never appears on a line by itself and can prepend Building Group, Primary Thoroughfare or Primary Locality.

THOROUGHFARE ELEMENTS Building Groups

A collection of buildings with a collective name, located on or near the same thoroughfare.

The buildings in a Building Group, if numbered, are numbered within the Building Group, not within the thoroughfare. Examples include universities, hospitals, some industrial estates, some terraces, shopping centres, apartment complexes etc.

It may be appended to a building number, if any, otherwise it is output on a line by itself. It is omitted if the same as organisation.

Primary Thoroughfare

The name of the thoroughfare on which premises are located. It may appear on a line by itself or be appended to either a sub building or building number.

Addresses with thoroughfares can sometimes have the thoroughfare excluded where a Building Group exists, such as a Retail Centre or Business Park, and the thoroughfare is not part of the Postal Address.

Secondary thoroughfare

It is never present without a primary thoroughfare. The primary thoroughfare is dependent on the secondary thoroughfare and appears before the secondary thoroughfare in any address.

Secondary thoroughfare are generally used to assist locating a primary thoroughfare. For example:

ADDRESS Fictional Example Primary Thoroughfare LOVE LANE EAST

Secondary Thoroughfare MOUNT STREET LOWER

Post Town DUBLIN 2

This example shows that LOVE LANE EAST is a small thoroughfare that can be found off MOUNT STREET LOWER in DUBLIN 2.

LOCALITY ELEMENTS Locality elements are:

 Primary Locality

 Secondary Locality

 Post Town

 County

The first two locality elements refer to areas, districts, industrial estates, towns, etc. For a complete list of address types query the ADDRESS_TYPES table.

For example:

ADDRESS Fictional Example Primary Locality KILLARAINY Secondary Locality MOYCULLEN

The primary locality refers to the specific place the address is. The secondary locality helps identify where the primary locality is located.

Primary Locality

The name of the locality in which the address resides.

In urban areas, the primary locality can be required to distinguish between two thoroughfares of the same name in the same district or town. Industrial estates with named thoroughfares are also held as localities. In rural areas the primary locality is generally a townland name.

Secondary Locality

Never present without a primary locality. The secondary locality has a wider geographic scope than the primary locality.

It is the secondary locality therefore which differentiates addresses with the same primary locality name within the same county.

Secondary localities are more likely to be required for rural addresses.

Post Town

The name of the post town associated with the premises for postal delivery purposes. This includes Dublin Postal Districts “Dublin 1” to “Dublin 24”.

The post town is a significant element of the Postal Address, however it is not always populated in an address. The official post office guide, Eolaí an Phoist⁴, describes post towns in the following manner

“A provincial postal address may include the name of a town or village several miles distant, with which the addressee has little or no connection, and, in some places, especially if this residence happens to be near a county boundary, the name of the neighbouring county instead of the county in which he actually resides. The explanation is that the main mail despatches have to be sent for more detailed sub division to certain centres known as POST TOWNS, chosen because of their accessibility and convenience.”

Post County

One of the 26 Counties in the Republic of Ireland. These counties are sub-national divisions used for the purposes of administrative, geographical and political demarcation. Post County is the County associated with the Post Town, not the geographic county in which the building is located. The Post County is normally used as part of the Postal Address with some exceptions e.g. Dublin Postal Districts where the Post County is not used and some Post Towns (e.g. Tipperary, Kildare, etc.) that have the same name as the Post County.

EIRCODE ELEMENT Eircode

The seven character Eircode has an A65F4E2 format. The Eircode is a mandatory address element. The last line of a Postal Address will contain the Eircode, displayed with a space.

e.g. A65 F4E2.

4 Ireland. Eolaí an phoist: Post office guide. Dublin