page_title: Roads in Ireland
section_title: National primary roads
hierarchical_section_title: Roads in Ireland / Roads in the Republic of Ireland / National primary roads
context_page_description: The island of Ireland, comprising Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, has an extensive network of tens of thousands of kilometres of public roads, usually surfaced. These roads have been developed and modernised over centuries, from trackways suitable only for walkers and horses, to surfaced roads including modern motorways. The major routes were established before Irish independence and consequently take little cognisance of the border other than a change of identification number and street furniture. Northern Ireland has had motorways since 1962, and has a well-developed network of primary, secondary and local routes. The Republic started work on its motorway network in the early 1980s; and historically, the road network there was once somewhat less well developed. However, the Celtic Tiger economic boom and an influx of European Union structural funding, saw national roads and regional roads in the Republic come up to international standard quite quickly.
context_section_description: National Primary routes form the main cross country roads in Ireland and include all motorways. This category of road is numbered from 1–50 with the prefix "N" (or "M" for motorway sections). The routes numbered N1-N11 radiate anti-clockwise from Dublin, with those in the range N12-N26 being cross-country roads and N27-N33 being newer short link roads. The N40 is the Cork Ring Road and the N50 is the Dublin Ring Road. National secondary roads (see next section) are numbered under the same scheme with higher numbers. On road signage, destinations served but not on the route in question are listed in brackets, with the connecting route also listed (see thumbnail).
  Northern Ireland route sections (which are classified separately according to NI schemes) are in some cases included in a theoretical complete cross-border route – for example the N3 route, which re-enters the Republic. These are listed here in brackets for completeness (and are present on southern road signage).
  This list ignores the sections of route reclassified as motorway (see previous section).
caption: Non-motorway National Route sign in Ireland
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