A chairde,

I need to send a letter to someone in Ireland. The address I have been given for this person is in Irish and I think it would be best for it to be left in Irish for the person getting it. If I send a letter from the west coast of the US to Ireland addressed in Irish, will the mail carriers around here know what to do with it? Should I maybe write Ireland in ()s under Eire so that the people here have an idea of whare it goes? I'd appreciate the advice le bhur dtoil

Go raibh maith agaibh

Beir bua agus beannacht

Yes, you do need to write "Ireland" so it gets out of the U.S. safely. But leaving the rest of the address in Irish is fine; I've never had a problem with that.

Abigail

A Riona

Abigail is correct regarding including Ireland in the address. The rest of the address can be put as Gaeilge as the Irish postal service An Post guarantee to deliver post addressed as Gaeilge

Although they will take longer outside the Gaeltacht! (I ring them up every few months or so to remind them of my address in Irish)

Go raibh maith agaibh as an eolas. This address is in the Gaeltacht so they should then deliver it accordingly. I'll take the advice of all and write Ireland so the US postal service has an idea of whare to send it. :)

Beir bua agus beannacht

Scéal grinn. Fadó, Fadó agus mé fos ar an Ollscoil, bhí mo stáiseanóireacht fhéin agam.
Faoin seoladh bhí "Uimhir gutháin" agus mo uimhir baile. (Ní raibh na mobiles ann an uair sin, ná mórán ríomhairí.)

Chuir mé isteach ar phost le comhlucht san Iodáil.

Fuair mé diúltú uatha na míosa ina dhiaidh sin. Bhí an litir tar éis a bheith cuirthe go dtí an Ind ar dtús, sular tháinig sí chughamsa. Cheap Post na hIodáile gur áit éigin san Ind a bhí i gceist le "Uimhir Gutháin"

Mail sorters read from the bottom up. Information gets stripped away as mail is sorted into different areas.

25 Céide na Feirme
Tamhlacht
Baile Átha Cliath
Éire

becomes:

25 Céide na Feirme
Tamhlacht
Baile Átha Cliath

becomes:

25 Céide na Feirme
Tamhlacht

becomes:

25 Céide na Feirme

becomes:

25

One you get past "Ireland", the letter is in an Irish sorting office.

Consider if you want to send a letter to a place in Japan. You can write the entire address in Japanese on the letter... but just make sure you write "Japan" at the end! Here's how I myself would do it:

25 Céide na Feirme
Tamhlacht
Baile Átha Cliath
Les Irland (Or whatever "Ireland" is in the native tongue)

The Universal Postal Union (UPU), of which pretty much every country in the world is a member, asks that international mail addresses include on the last line the name of the target country, in capital letters, in either the originating country's language, or in an internationally recognized language, or both. Quite logically, the rest of the address above the country name can be in any language as long as it makes sense to the postal services in the target country:

http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/formatting_international_address_en.pdf

I did a quick goodle search on the UPU and went to their site, but couldn't determine if Irish is an internationally recognized language according to the UPU. If not, well.... "today EU, tomorrow UPU!"

I kind of implied "internationally recognized" to mean English and French.