Ireland Roads

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andrew_s

Legendary Member
Location
Gloucester
N Roads are the equivalent of A roads here, and are variable in size and traffic levels.
I wouldn't worry about them myself, but my experience is about 10 years old.

In Ireland most of the major roads have what are effectively hard shoulders that you ride in. The normal score seems to be that everyone drives in the central lanes, and pulls across into the hard shoulder to let people overtake.
 
As you get further west Some N roads aren't much busier than our B roads, further east though near Dublin some N roads (like the N11) are pretty busy like Andrew says the busier N roads have large hard shoulders though. The other improvement in the last 10 years is that Motorways have been built to replace sections of N roads. The last time I was in Ireland was 4 years ago though so I'm not sure of the current state of things.
 

roops70

New Member
I know West Cork well, and I would certainly recommend smaller roads once you get to more mountainous terrain. The trouble with some N roads is that they are no wider than the local roads but carry more and faster traffic. Surfaces can vary but generally are quite bumpy. The glory of Ireland is the pace (slow) of things, so get off the main roads and enjoy it.
 
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