In the US, the stereotypical town always has a 'Main Street' - what is the equivalent in an Irish village?

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Priscilla Duck

Main Street is the most popular one, and then either the names of dead patriots, saints, local geographical features or local people of note.
Towns in my area nearly all have a Main St. Thurles has Liberty Square, Kilkenny has John St.
Parnell St, O'Connell St and Patrick St. are popular, as are Market Square and [Insert Local Hero's name] Street.

Orla C

Main street, High street are both common. Every large town or city has an O'Connell Street.

Roads have official names like N20 (N being National) or M50 (M for Motorway) or R530 (R for regional). Some small towns or villages will refer to 'the road to Cork' or 'the Cork Road', more to mean that that's the road to take to get to Cork, for example.

Within the towns or villages there are street names - Maiden Street, Church Street, Crescent, Park, Court .... but I don't think I've ever seen Boulevard. Most places have house numbers, but not all.

In rural areas, a place might be named, as a townland. A house might have a name, but never a house number. But most places like this in Ireland are small communities, so everyone knows everyone else so post going missing is very rarely a problem.

bluebell

Main Street is the principal street in most Irish small towns and villages."High Street" is what you'd find in UK. If you find a High Street in the town, it's not usually the principal street, but descriptive. Westport has one, it ascends sharply, up high. Westport also has a Castlebar Street, in the urban area. Castlebar Road is its continuation out of town towards Castlebar. Streets inside towns, roads outside.
Westport has a green, but it's not a Village Green. It is a Fairgreen, and that will tell you that historically fairs or markets took place there. Not now. though. Only the remnant of days gone by, the memory lingering in the name.

xXx-Emz-xXx

The main road!! mostly
or main street

greenorlagh

Strangely enough the towns in Northern Ireland don't as a rule have High Streets - they have Main Streets BUT Belfast has a High Street.

noemar53

i think the best way to research you querey is google earth download the free version and go to ireland it name every street/road we sadly dont have manny villages left. small towns are the norm but they do call them main street

is mise lisa

i'd say there is a main street in every village in ireland! well down in cork anyway. not too sure about mayo though. A lot of streets in towns are named after Irish patriots or Irish people of interest such as O Connell street or Casement street. All our roads are named such as N8 or R316.
hope i helped

Greenie

well really never use road names when i am in ireland, most of the time roads are referred to as the the road to cork or the cork road (you get the idea), usually even the mailing address doesn't make sense, i write on my letters that i live in limerick when i really live in roscommon just because i live closer to there mail man

twentythirdspiral

'High Street' is a typical name for the main street, and villages often have 'village green' - a remnant of the communal open green space where poor people could graze animals.
Though, saying that, Castlebar, Co. Mayo does indeed have a "MAIN STREET"!
Sadly not all Ireland has been mapped properly, perhaps you could try looking at Dublin where Google has given street names.

Or some councils publish different documents listing street names incidentally, such as this one for Ballina in Co. Mayo. scan over the document and you'll learn a lot about the location and history of this small Irish town.
http://www.mayococo.ie/en/YourCouncils/TownCouncils/BallinaPublications/PDFFile,1368,en.pdf

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