Today marks the 20th anniversary of the metrication of speed limits in the Republic of Ireland. 20 January 2005 was the day that all speed limits in Ireland switched from mph to km/h.
The following summary of events is reproduced from our main website:
The Republic of Ireland’s metrication programme started much later than that of the UK. However by completing the metrication of its roads in January 2005, it has left the UK well behind.
In contrast to Canada, which started its conversion programme with speed limits, Ireland made changes of speed limits the final stage in the changeover.
Ireland replaced imperial distance signage over a period of 10 years. Since the lifetime of most road signs is also 10 years this meant that there was virtually no cost to this conversion.
The final stage of the programme was to convert the speed limits on 20 January 2005. The Irish Department of Transport took the opportunity afforded by metric conversion to comprehensively review speed limits. As a result, the speed limits should be better tuned to local traffic conditions and hence helping road safety.
The key to a successful changeover was believed to be a very rapid conversion of the actual signs preceded by a blitz of information and publicity in the two weeks preceding the change. Drivers were therefore left in no doubt as to what was happening and were warned that ignorance or confusion about the new limits would not be accepted by the police as an excuse for breaking the new limits.
Like Australia and Canada, the changeover passed without incident.
RTÉ Archives – 2004-02-05
“Traffic signs to indicate speed limits in kilometres per hour instead of miles per hour.”
Road Sign Review 2004
RTÉ Archives – 2005-01-20
“Motorists in Ireland adapt to the introduction of speed limits set in kilometres per hour rather than miles.”
Mind Your Metric Speed 2005
Further reading
UKMA Newsletter – Volume 3 Issue 1, February 2005
Metric signs ahead – A report by the UK Metric Association by Robin Paice, 2006 (Ireland, page 55) – ISBN 978-0-9552351-0-8
Metric Views 
Interesting; I wonder how many of the UK’s MPs and members of the House of Lords are aware of this fact/20th Anniversary.
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The increasing amount of “fiddling” with speed limits such as the introduction of 20 mph zones, 40 mph zones and so on has heightened the need for speed restriction repeater signs. This only increases the number of signs on our roads and as a result will increase the cost of a conversion to km/h over and above any increases that can be attributed to inflation.
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outstanding! 105 2025 Lib Dems block ability of Minister to allow metric measures for draught beer ornate
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This seems like a reasonable article to add a link to an American YouTuber who confesses that after living 7 years in Germany she still converts metric units to US Customary to understand them.
Though she is quite pleasant and confesses that there are ways that metric is superior, she still makes the mistake of opining that thinking in metric is hard for her without realizing that it is the constant converting from metric to USC that creates the obstacle for her to switch to thinking in metric.
I lived in France for about a year back in the early 1970’s and had no trouble switching to metric because I adopted and learned metric the way same way I adopted and learned French: by abandoning my old way of thinking and immersing myself into the new way.
She also makes the mistake of asserting that Liberia and Myanmar don’t use metric despite the fact that both countries are converting (admittedly in their own way).
Here is the link. It is kind of fun to watch, actually.
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Found this comment from a resident of Puerto Rico reacting to the video I posted above. Shows how crazy a muddle can get!
“Puerto Rico is a USA Territory with USA citizenship. However, Puerto Rico has the craziest measurement system in the World. The length of the roads is in kilometers, but the speed is in MPH. Body temperature is in Celsius, but the weather temperature is in Fahrenheit. The area of a lot of land is in “cuerdas” (neither acres nor hectares with 1 cuerda = 0.98 acres). Gasoline (petrol) used to be sold in gallons, but around 25 years ago was changed to liters. Heights are in feet, but the elevation of a piece of land is in meters.”
Ezra aka pundit
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Ezra,
Puerto Rico’s muddle may be attributed to it having been metric before the American takeover, resulting in some de-metrication, but mostly having the metric system as well as some old Spanish units remain intact.
The word cuerda literally means rope in Spanish. However, as a unit of measure a cuerda is a traditional unit of land area, primarily used in Puerto Rico and historically in some parts of Latin America. It is roughly equivalent to 3930 m^2. Due to its close proximity to an acre, it’s often informally treated as such, especially in the United States. Even though it is equivalent to 3930 m^2, it can be viewed as equal to 4000 m^2 for simplicity.
Anytime I encounter the American acre, I use 4000 m^2 as a good enough approximation, since acres are never stated accurately anyways.
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South Africa had a comparable situation to that in Puerto Rico. Between 1652 and 1806 Cape Town and its hinterland were a Dutch colony and the morgen (about 9000 m²) was the official unit of measure. In 1806 the colony passed into British control which was confirmed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. From 1824, imperial units were introduced into the Cape Colony apart from those units relating to the measure of land. The reason for retaining the old Dutch units was that all land deeds were drawn up using morgen and it would not be cost effective to change them into acres.
In the 1830’s many Dutch farmers moved into the interior and in the 1850’s the British Government recognised their republics (the Boer republics). They took the morgen with them. In parallel with this, the essentially British Colony of Natal was established, but they used acres for their unit of land measure. After the Boer War (1899-1902), the two Boer republics became British colonies and in 1910 the four colonies merged to form the Union of South Africa.
from the late 1890’s onwards, the Germans set up the colony of German South West Africa which used the hectare as its unit of land measure. The South African forces overran the territory during the First World War and under the Treaty of Versailles South Africa was given a mandate to administer the territory. In 1968 this mandate was declared illegal by the United Nations, but South Africa continued to administer the territory as though it were a fifth province of South Africa until 1990 when it attained and renamed itself Namibia.
Thus, on the eve of metrication (1968), morgen were used in the Cape Province, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, acres in Natal and hectares in South West Africa. During metrication, the former British colonies all adopted the hectare as its unit of land measure.
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I would have hoped that the conversion of road signs to metric and the desire (presumably) of the Irish to reassert their adhesion to the EU as a result of Brexit in the UK would lead them to pretty much abandon Imperial (and stones) in daily and in official life and use metric exclusively everywhere.
Nonetheless, I hear that there is still a fair bit of Imperial used in daily life and conversation (even amongst the young?) after all these years of conversion to metric road signs (and conversion to other things like Celsius for temperature, m/s or km/h for wind speed, mm for rainfall, cm for snowfall, mb or hPa for barometric pressure, etc)
Does anyone have good recent on the ground information on how the authorities and the regular folks use metric instead of imperial? Any chance stones will ever disappear?
Ezra aka punditgi
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