I-C number plates the old way
NUMBER Plates. More precisely old Irish car number plates. More precisely again, the two letters that were carried on old car number plates prior to the introduction of county initials in 1987.
That is the subject matter around which this weeks column is hung. Can you remember the two letters that denoted what county a car - or lorry or motor bike or tractor - came from?
As in IC was Carlow, CI was Laois, what was Kilkenny? Wexford? Can you remember any of the Dublin numbers?
I've asked similar questions of a good few people over the last couple of days and it provoked a fair bout of nostalgia as men proudly recalled the number of their first car or couples fondly reeled off the car registration of the banger which served as a love-nest in they're courting days!
What brought this focus on number plates about you ask? Or, maybe, more accurately, what in the name of God is on about this week? Well, if you must know, it was a couple of New Years Day walks in Ennis; two years ago I took off out the Limerick Road and before I reached nearby Clarecastle had met cars from over half the 26 counties. By the time of the return route brought me back to the West County Hotel the county count was up around 21.
Things rested so, as the Seanachai might say, until this New Years Day when I opted for a quieter, more rural ramble, tipping out the Gort Road, then slipping over the back-roads which brings a body by the scene Ballyalla lake.
Unlike the January 1, 2006, cars were scarce on this route but barely twenty minutes into my walk I had met moving cars from the four provinces! Munster, via Clare's CE was a given and, considering the location, Galway's G was no surprise either. The perfusion of D reg cars throughout the country, even on Banner by-roads, ensured Leinster of early inclusion.
However as I rounded a bend and began up a steep incline what did I see coming against me but a car with DL number plates! Ulster, through Donegal, had united with the other three provinces!
As I had scarcely encountered ten vehicles, the odds of meeting cars from the four provinces must have been high and I decided there and then to carry out a survey similar to that of two years previously.
When I got back on to the main Gort Road, I made my way through the narrow main streets of Ennis before again traipsing out the Limerick Road, probably the second or third busiest thoroughfare in Ireland though significantly quieter on the first day of the year.
Still, by the time I had turned back at Clarecastle roundabout and moseyed to a well deserved pit-stop in the Halfway Bar, beside the West County Hotel, I had observed car registrations from 23 of the 26 counties!
Only Monaghan, Longford and, surprisingly, Waterford (who have both W and WD) remained undetected.
In the course of the subsequent conversation I happened to mention my 'research results' and before long an old man at the homely fireplace asked the company, a mixture of very young, middle-aged and very old, how many of the old county registrations could they remember?
"What about you young man?" said he, nodding at me. Delighted to be called young but admitting to remembering the old number plates I listed out IC for Carlow, CI for Laois, IP for Kilkenny, MI for Wexford, IM for Galway, IE for Clare and EI for Sligo. And that was me finished.
You will note a pattern there, all opposites bar I didn't know who had PI. Turns out it was one of Cork's six registrations. One of my first memories of being aware of car registrations is watching Frank Hall's old Newsbeat programme on RTE television back in the late sixties, early seventies where a man in a pub was being interviewed about collecting unusual car numbers to put on display in his premises.
He was on the look-out for a particular Clare number plate. E1E 10. Which would read E-I-E-I-0. Think Frank Hall suggested that a farmer called McDonnell might own it!
Now what has all this got to do with Gaelic games? Well, very little in one way, and a lot in another for doesn't the number plate convey county identity? And the GAA's strength has been built on county identity.
As a person who spent many, many years thumbing the country, especially to hurling matches, I can tell you that the number plate of the approaching car was a source of real hope.
If you were standing beyond the Railway Bridge in Portlaoise heading for a match in Ennis and an IE car came into the eye-line the thumb was raised with a bit more earnestness.
Similarly on the road home, having escaped the confines of Limerick city and maybe been dropped outside Nenagh or Roscrea, a CI registered car gave rise to hopes of a spin across the border into Laois while an IC on the horizon might just be one big lift home, a chance the driver might recognise you.
Ah yes, I remember it well, even at a remove of 21 years I can see in the minds eye those IC and IE automobiles that ferried me to and fro across the country, the first such trip of which I have a memory - and photographic evidence! - a hackney journey to Inagh, Co Clare on the day of my Holy Communion!
With all four grandparents in Inagh and with my sister Carmel having made her confirmation the same year our treat was a jaunt to Clare! We're talking 1967 and as Daddy's only form of transport back then was a small motor cycle our parents hired Paddy Kelly's hackney to bring us the 130 miles to their home village.
A big black car, BIC 105, the first registration number I consigned to memory. Just last Summer, after a chance meeting on College Street the previous Christmas, Paddy Kelly's son Liam, a teacher in Askea Boys School, was able to furnish me with a photo-copy of his fathers receipt book of 40 years ago. Not only is that Holy Communion/Confirmation trip recorded but so too is another trip early the following year. Sadly, that would have been for Granda McGough's funeral.
I had occasion to mention here before the Diary that came in the inside pocket of my Holy Communion Suit, carrying, as it did, the Roll of Honour for the All-Ireland Hurling and Football Championship. I have a notion that that same blue diary may have also listed the Republic of Ireland number plates.
Maybe my memory is playing tricks with me as I'm told the county numbers were carried in the AA book, a copy of which was around our house too. I'd like to think it was in that Holy Communion Diary as it would explain my fascination with old car number plates.
As youngsters we would often play games which involved collecting car number plate numbers; can't remember the exact rules, but on some occasions the numbers would be carefully written into a copy-book while on family trips to and from Clare it might be the first person to spot an IC or IE reg that would win the day.
Jim McDonnell tells a story of returning home from the 1971 All-Ireland hurling final between Kilkenny and Tipperary and his father pointed out a Kilkenny car sporting the opposition number ... TIP 234.
One of the most famous Irish number plates is VIP 1. This stunning private registration number was first issued by the DVLNI in 1979 for the forthcoming visit of Pope John Paul II and used on the "Popemobile" for the duration of his visit. After his tour the number plate was sold at auction and released into the market. This classic car registration changed hands a couple of times before it was sold in July 2006 to Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea FC, for a record breaking ￡285 000. There has never been any other number plates from the VIP series released making this car registration number very important indeed.
Remember, too, watching a film as a youngster in which bank robbers were caught by dent of the evidence of a small boy who was collecting car registration numbers, among which was the get away car.
All I know is that ever since those childhood days I can tell you the number of particular cars but at the same time be completely unaware of the actual make!
Hence those New Years Day walks and the number-plate spotting. Just further proof that I've never grown up!
Postscript: And, yes, I was, despite the drizzle, out number-plate counting on the highways and byways round Ennis on New Years Day 2016, too early to espy a 161 reg vehicle but long enough, on phase one, to rack up 17 of the 26 counties, this postscript being written during a pit-stop in the Templegate Hotel where I have shared with 'doubting Thomas' and Thomasinas' how the apparent madness is actually an excellent exercise for one's mental health!?!
"Do you use a notebook?" one asked. No! "Log the county on your phone?" No! "How then do you remember the county's you've spotted?"
I’m glad you asked me that! You see I am mad into hurling so having broken the county's into provinces I then sub-section them into hurling tiers?!
Leinster, for instance, has KK, WX, OY, LS. D, CW and WM in the Liam MacCarthy Cup while KE. MH and WK play Christy Ring, LH and LD operate out of Nickey Rackard or Lory Meagher!
GY remain in Connacht for this exercise, the provinces only Tier 1 county, with MO and RN Ring/Rackard contestants, SO and LM Meagher counties!
C, T, W, L and CE are, of course, all Munster MacCarthy county's and remaining in Munster, though now a Leinster MacCarthy county, are KY!
The hurling tiers takes a slight back-seat when it comes to Ulster as it is easier remember that CN, MN and DL are the three Northern county's included in the Republic of Ireland's 26!
So, my doubting Templegate brethren, who this minute are not sure what day of the week it is, would a number-plate walk not maintain, and indeed boost, your mental alertness?!!
OLD IRISH NUMBER PLATES COUNTY BY COUNTY
LEINSTER
Carlow: IC
Kildare: IO ZW
Kilkenny: IP
Laois: CI
Longford: IX
Louth: IY ZY
Offaly: IR
Meath: AI ZN
Westmeath: LI
Wexford: MI ZR
Wicklow: NI
Dublin: IK RI SI YI Z ZA ZC ZD ZE ZC ZG ZH ZJ ZL ZO ZS ZU
ZV: (Dublin or vehicles over 30 years old)
ZZ: Temporary registrations
MUNSTER
Clare: IE
Cork: IF PI ZB ZF ZT ZK
Kerry: IN ZX
Limerick: IU IV TI
Tipperary: FI (North); GI HI (South)
Waterford: KI WI
CONNACHT
Galway: IM ZM
Leitrim: IT
Mayo: IS IZ
Roscommon: DI
Sligo: EI
ULSTER (3)
Cavan: ID
Donegal: IH ZP
Monaghan: BI
Ulster (6)
Antrim: County: DZ IA KZ RZ; Belfast: AZ CZ EZ FZ GZ MZ
OI OZ PZ TZ UZ WZ XI
Armagh: IB LZ XZ
Derry City: UI; County: YZ IW NZ
Down: BZ IJ JZ SZ
Fermanagh: IG IL
Tyrone: HZ JI VZ
Note: Old-style (pre-1987) Irish vehicle registration plates followed the system introduced in the UK in 1904