Visiting Ireland
Driving in Ireland as a Tourist — The Rules You Actually Need
Ireland drives on the left, signs its speed limits in kilometres per hour, and the drink-drive limit is 50 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood — 20 mg for learner, novice and professional drivers. This guide covers what visitors most often get wrong — written by a driving school and checked line by line against the Road Safety Authority’s official Rules of the Road.
Drive on the left
The first rule, and the one the RSA prints in capitals for overseas drivers.
“You must drive on the left-hand side of the road in Ireland” — the RSA prints this as an “important message to overseas drivers” (p. 25). The driver sits on the right, so the gear lever and handbrake are on your left. If you have never driven on the left, take the first few kilometres slowly and away from city traffic.
Roundabouts (p. 135–136)
- Treat the roundabout as a junction: yield to traffic coming from the right or already on the roundabout, but keep moving if the way is clear
- By law you enter a roundabout by turning left (RSA tourist booklet)
- Think of it as a clock: exits from 6 to 12 o’clock — generally approach in the left lane; exits after 12 o’clock — generally the right lane
- Where road markings show which lane to use, follow the markings
Where visitors slip back
- Turning out of a car park or petrol station onto an empty road
- Pulling away after a stop, especially first thing in the morning
- Turning right across traffic — you cross the near lane and end up on the left
- A quiet rural road with no centre line
Speed limits are in km/h
Every speed sign in the Republic of Ireland is in kilometres per hour.
| Type of road | Default limit | ≈ mph |
|---|---|---|
| Motorway (M numbers, blue signs) | 120 km/h | 75 |
| National road (N numbers, green signs) | 100 km/h | 62 |
| Regional road | 80 km/h | 50 |
| Local road | 60 km/h | 37 |
| Cities, towns and villages | 50 km/h | 31 |
| Special limits in built-up areas | 30 km/h | 19 |
Default limits from the table on p. 117. The mph column is our own approximate conversion, for orientation only — the signs show km/h.
These are default limits: they apply when no sign says otherwise. Local authorities set lower limits near schools, at roadworks, on bends and in tunnels (p. 118), and a sign always overrides the default. A white circle with black diagonal stripes on a local road means 60 km/h (p. 118).
Towing a caravan or trailer (p. 121)
- Any vehicle towing a trailer, caravan, horsebox or other attachment: 80 km/h on all roads, motorways included
- If the road limit is lower, the lower limit applies
Cameras and penalties
- Gardaí and other authorised agencies check speeds; you will also see average speed zone signs (p. 120)
- It is illegal to carry or use a device that detects or interferes with speed-monitoring equipment (p. 120)
- Speeding: €160 fixed charge and 3 penalty points (Appendix 4, p. 267)
Traffic lights, bus lanes and yellow boxes
Three things that catch out drivers from other countries.
Traffic lights (pp. 108–109)
- Red means stop — you must not go beyond the stop line. A green filter arrow lets you go in its direction, if the way is clear, even while the red is showing
- Amber means stop too, unless you are so close when it appears that stopping would be dangerous
- A flashing amber arrow lets you go only after yielding to conflicting traffic and pedestrians
- A green light is not a right of way — proceed only if the way is clear
- If the lights are out of order, stop at the line and go only when it is safe
Bus lanes and yellow boxes
- A bus lane has a continuous white line and the words ‘Lána Bus’. Normally it operates 7am–7pm or at peak hours; read the plate on the blue sign for the exact times (p. 84)
- Outside those times all traffic may use it
- Do not enter a yellow box junction unless you can clear it without stopping (p. 91)
Drink and drug driving
Gardaí run roadside checkpoints and can test any driver they stop.
The limit is 50 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood for fully licensed drivers, and 20 mg for learner, novice and professional drivers (RSA tourist advice). The RSA’s own advice in the Rules of the Road is simply: never ever drink and drive (p. 173). There is no reliable way to know how much you can drink and stay under the limit.
| Blood alcohol (per 100 ml) | Penalty (p. 174) |
|---|---|
| 50–80 mg | €200 fixed penalty and an immediate 3-month driving ban |
| 80–100 mg | €400 fixed penalty and a 6-month ban |
| 20–80 mg (learner, novice or professional driver) | €200 fixed penalty and a 3-month ban |
| Over 100 mg (over 80 mg for learner/novice/professional) | Court; bans of 1 to 6 years |
If you fail a roadside breath test you will be arrested and asked for an evidential sample at a Garda station (p. 174). Refusing to give one carries an automatic 4-year disqualification for a first offence.
Drugs are treated the same way. Gardaí can carry out roadside saliva tests and impairment tests, and the maximum penalty for drug driving is the same as for drink driving: a €5,000 fine and up to 6 months in prison (p. 175). “Drugs” includes prescription and over-the-counter medicines that impair your driving.
Phones, seatbelts and children
Simple rules, strictly enforced.
Mobile phones (p. 50)
- You must not drive while using a hand-held phone: €120 fixed charge and 3 penalty points (Appendix 4, p. 266)
- Sending or reading a text or email while driving means a compulsory court appearance — there is no fixed-charge option
- The exception: phoning 999 or 112, or responding to another genuine emergency
- Set your sat-nav before you set off
Seatbelts and child seats
- Where a seatbelt is fitted, everyone must wear it, front and back (p. 45)
- The driver must make sure every passenger under 17 is belted or in a child restraint (p. 48)
- Every child under 150 cm or 36 kg must use a child restraint suited to their height and weight (p. 46)
- Never put a rear-facing baby seat in front of an active airbag (p. 46)
- Ask your rental company for a seat with an E mark (UN Regulation 129, p. 48)
Country roads
Most of Ireland’s roads are not motorways. This is where visitors need the most care.
Many local roads are narrow and have no hard shoulder, and in rural areas you will meet tractors and animals on the road (RSA tourist advice). Drive at a speed that lets you stop in the distance you can see to be clear — on a narrow road with a blind bend, that can be far below the 60 or 80 km/h on the sign.
The yellow broken line (p. 75)
- A single broken yellow line along the edge of the road marks a hard shoulder, which is normally for pedestrians and cyclists
- You may pull in to it briefly to let a vehicle behind you overtake — but do not keep driving in it, and only if nobody is using it and there are no junctions or entrances nearby
- Continuous white centre lines: keep to the left of them (p. 75)
Sharing the road
- Overtaking a cyclist: leave at least 1 metre where the limit is 50 km/h or less, and at least 1.5 metres above 50 km/h (p. 54)
- Horses: slow down, be ready to stop, pass wide and slowly, and do not use your horn or lights in a way that could startle the horse (p. 227)
- Pedestrians on roads without a footpath walk facing oncoming traffic, so they come towards you on your side of the road (p. 216)
Motorways and the M50 toll
Keep left, overtake on the right, and never reverse.
On the motorway (pp. 149–154)
- Keep left. Stay in Lane 1 unless you are overtaking, then move back
- Never drive on the hard shoulder except in an emergency, and never turn or reverse
- Missed your exit? Drive on to the next one. Do not cross the ghost island or reverse up the hard shoulder
- If you realise you are driving against the traffic: pull in to the hard shoulder, stop, and call 999 or 112. Do not try to turn round (p. 149)
If you break down (p. 157)
- Move to the hard shoulder, as far left as you can. If you cannot, warn other drivers, for example with your hazard lights
- Leave by the left-hand doors and wait behind the crash barrier
- Use the roadside phone to reach the Motorway Operations Control Centre; on a mobile, give the label of the nearest emergency phone or location marker
- Do not put a warning triangle on a motorway, and do not attempt repairs on the hard shoulder
The M50 around Dublin has no toll booths. You must pay online at eflow.ie before your journey or by 8pm the next day (eFlow). In a hire car, ask the rental company at the desk how they handle M50 tolls. Other tolled roads have a toll plaza where you pay as you pass (p. 156).
Jet lag and tiredness
Many visitors pick up a hire car straight off an overnight flight.
If you feel tired, stop somewhere safe, drink a cup or two of strong coffee and take a nap of no more than 20 minutes — caffeine takes about 20 minutes to work. Then get some fresh air before you drive on (p. 177). The RSA is clear that this is an emergency measure: the only cure for a serious lack of sleep is sleep. After a long-haul overnight flight, consider not driving until the next day.
Licence, documents and penalty points
What to carry, and what follows you home.
What to carry
- Your driving licence, at all times when driving (p. 24)
- Your rental agreement (hire car) or the vehicle’s registration document and insurance (your own car)
- Hire companies set their own licence rules — some ask for an International Driving Permit. Check with your rental company before you travel (RSA tourist advice)
- Planning to live here? See driving on a foreign licence
Penalty points for visitors
- Drivers with foreign licences are subject to Ireland’s penalty-point system. Your details are recorded on a separate database, and if you later get an Irish licence the points are applied to it (RSA tourist advice)
- Emergency number: 999 or 112
Correct as at 3 October 2026. Page numbers refer to the RSA’s Rules of the Road, Revision No. 9 (May 2026), which reflects the law as at 1 March 2025. The RSA’s own visitor booklet, Using the Roads in Ireland, was last updated in 2023 and still shows some older figures — where the two differ, we have followed the current Rules of the Road.
Nervous about driving on the left?
One lesson with an approved instructor on Dublin’s roads — roundabouts, lane discipline and the M50 — before you head off on your road trip.
Sources
- 📘 Rules of the Road, Revision No. 9, May 2026 — Road Safety Authority; law as at 1 March 2025. All page references above are to this edition
- 🧳 RSA — Advice for using the roads in Ireland, and the RSA booklet Using the Roads in Ireland — A Guide for Tourists (2023)
- 🛣️ eFlow — pay an M50 toll
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