An Post for Everything

Looking for someplace to get a dog license? How about pay that traffic ticket? Or maybe pick up your welfare check so you can buy some Lotto tickets? It's time for you to hit the local post office, or An Post as it's known in Ireland.

There's one in every town, no matter how small, and they're all easily marked with a distinct green sign. Not that An Post is strictly a post office as we know it by any means... they can often be found in magazine stores or corner shops and I've decided you can do just about anything there.

When I first moved over I was looking for Lottery scratch tickets to send home for a birthday. When I called Baz to ask where I might find them I was told 'at An Post' like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Duh. The post office. Of COURSE they sell lottery tickets. What was I thinking?

Not only do they sell lottery tickets... On top of actual mail delivery they also do pre-paid phone top ups, passports, dog licenses, you can pay your Garda (police) fines, pick up welfare checks, pay electric bills, buy gift vouchers and purchase prize bonds. Of course, you wouldn't want to forget to pick up your TV license while you're there.

Uh-huh. You need a €150 ($190) license to watch TV (lucky for you, Kara, they don't monitor how MUCH TV you watch). They have people who go door to door and check for it. They even use the funny (and slightly crude) little TV characters Podge and Rodge to advertise the need for one. What happens if you don't have your TV license? The fine is over €600 ($760) for the first offense and twice that the 2nd time around. It sounds a bit silly, but they really do a good amount of public broadcasting over here and it's how they pay for it instead of the week-long telethons you see on PBS (when you might actually ever turn PBS on). It helps fund things like Irish-speaking programs. Yes, 'Irish' really is a language.

I'm sure I didn't even BEGIN to dig into all of the things you can do at An Post, but I'll keep you posted as I come up with more. In the meantime, feel free to stop by An Post and pick up your welfare checks so you can buy those lottery tickets to win enough to pay the electric bill to run the TV that you just purchased a license for. ;-)