What Irish/English map is best to have for an Ireland driving vacation
 

We will be heading to Ireland in May and renting a car. I have read that we should have a detailed map which has names in both Irish and English. Does anyone have any recommendations for the best map for us to buy? Some books had recommended the Ordnance Survey Map but then I read somewhere that those maps only have English names. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Any road atlas will do. They are sold at most garages/book shops/new agents etc.

Collins, AA, Ordinance Survey (the Irish versions) - all are good.

" I have read that we should have a detailed map which has names in both Irish and English."

I can't see why.

Irish names can be a confusion for people relying on inter-city buses - but only the first time a tourist encounters the practice. Within minutes, it becomes a charming local quirk.

For drivers, though, there are monolingual Irish signs in the Gaelacht (the network of Irish-language enclaves, mostly in the west of the Republic) - but it's impossible for a visitor to get into them without driving long enough along bilingually signed roads to realise, for example, that when a sign says Gailimh, it's pointing to Galway.

Many atlases in Ireland do flag the bigger cities as, for instance "Dublin (Baile Ath Cliath)" But to virtually all tourist intents and purposes, Ireland is entirely in the English-speaking world.

You will hit road signs in Irish once you hit An Spidéal west of Galway and also the compulsory western end of the Dingle Peninsula. Both Dingle and Connemara being popular tourist areas. Dingle bowing to the tourist has rejected its Irish label An Daingean whilst still claiming to be the main Irish speaking area?

I wouldn't really worry about it too much most modern glovebox maps have Irish and English names on locations. The OSI Atlas is generally regarded as the best but the Collins is a good alternative, smaller and cheaper.

My ring-bound, OSI Official Road Atlas Ireland 2012-2013 cost me 10 or 12 Euro. I bought it at a Service Plaza just off the M7 / M8. It replaced an older one that I purchased at a shop in Shannon Airport, some years before.
Most towns cities are bilingually labeled and I find it detailed enough to find some fairly obscure sites.

Not being as clever as Flanner, I was hopelessly confused several times while driving in Connemara--off the beaten path but those are some of the prettiest drives.

Get a dual-signed map, you're going to want a map anyway so don't understand why Flanner makes a big issue of it. Well, I do understand why, but that's a different post.

Regards,

cathinjoetown, often lost in translation while living in Galway for a year.

Thank you all so much for your quick and very helpful replies. I appreciate it. Can't wait for our trip!

When we were in Ireland, we had a map we had bought in Italy, which has only one name for each town, sometimes English and sometimes Irish. We did have problems with that when we were driving in Mayo and Galway counties. It's fine if you're going to Galway City, but there are no signs pointing to Derryrush, which is what's on my map, that would connect it with Doire Iorrais, which is what you would see on the road signs.

We also had a good ring binder map, with names in both languages. I can't find it now, so I don't know what it's called. The problem with ring binder maps in general is that you have to flip pages to get the big view. If you're in Enniskillen and heading to Westport, you may have to pull off the road fairly often to figure out which road you should be taking.

Thanks so much. I'll see which of these maps I can easily obtain.