Ireland
Cap in the app: 80 km/h.
Speed
80 km/h on all public roads, motorway included, for a car drawing another vehicle.
Source. S.I. 546/2008 Reg. 4, in the version given by S.I. 255/2022
Dimensions — the general rule applies to everyone, the exceptions to almost nobody
Ireland is so far the only country where both the car and the caravan may be at most 2.50 m wide, and the only one where the height limit is 4.65 m. It is also the country where the figures annex unambiguously does apply to a caravan outfit — and the reason is that Ireland has built its instrument the opposite way round from Lithuania and Slovenia: the general rule is category-neutral, and it is the exceptions that are category-limited.
Reg. 26(2), in the version given by S.I. 354/2015 Reg. 6, in force 1 January 2016:
(2) Subject to this Regulation, the overall width of a vehicle shall not exceed 2.50 metres.
"A vehicle" — no category, no weight limit, no goods connection. The car is caught, and the caravan is caught, since Reg. 2(1) defines trailer as "a vehicle attached to a mechanically propelled vehicle … but does not include a semi-trailer".
The exceptions that lift anyone to 2.55 were rewritten by S.I. 320/2017 Reg. 12, in force 14 July 2017, and that rewriting is the whole point:
(4) Subject to this Regulation, the overall width of: (a) a goods vehicle or a goods trailer with a design gross vehicle weight in excess of 3.5 tonnes, and (b) a vehicle to which paragraph (6) applies, may exceed 2.50 metres but shall not exceed 2.55 metres. … (6) This paragraph applies to vehicles to which Article 1(1)(a) of the Council Directive applies, namely motor vehicles in Categories M2 and M3 and their trailers in Category O and motor vehicles in Categories N2 and N3 and their trailers in Categories O3 and O4 …
The Irish legislator has therefore, in 2017, itself written 96/53's scope into the exception rule. M1 is not there, and O1/O2 are not there. A car with a caravan gets neither of the 2.55 routes. 2.50 is the limit, not a guideline. It is worth pausing on: a large share of the caravans sold in Europe are exactly 2.50 m wide and the most expensive models 2.55. The latter are too wide for an Irish public road.
The height stands in Reg. 36, in the version given by S.I. 366/2008 Reg. 2, in force 1 November 2008:
36. (1) (a) Subject to paragraph (2), the maximum overall height of a vehicle shall not exceed 4.65 metres. (b) Where a measurement when rounded down equals 4.65 metres it is deemed to be greater than 4.65 metres.
Here too "a vehicle" without a category. Paragraph (2) was a transitional rule that expired on 1 November 2013, and the only exception added since — Reg. 36(4), S.I. 166/2014 — concerns baled hay and silage.
Source. Road Traffic (Construction and Use of Vehicles) Regulations 2003, S.I. No. 5/2003, in the version given by S.I. 99/2004, 366/2008, 166/2014, 253/2014, 136/2015, 354/2015, 320/2017 and 23/2018.
| Dimension | Ireland | Article |
|---|---|---|
| Width, car | 2.50 m | Reg. 26(2) |
| Width, trailer | 2.50 m | Reg. 26(2) |
| Width with load | 2.90 m absolute ceiling | Reg. 27 |
| Height | 4.65 m | Reg. 36(1)(a) |
| Length, caravan | 12.00 m (a trailer) | Reg. 28(2) |
| Length, motorhome | 12.00 m (a mechanically propelled vehicle) | Reg. 28(1) |
| Length, outfit | 18.75 m | Reg. 29(1) |
The outfit limit does actually catch the car with the caravan, which it does not in Belgium, Lithuania or Slovenia, and the reason stands in the definition: "combination of vehicles" means a combination of a mechanically propelled vehicle and one trailer. No goods connection there either.
The measuring method. Reg. 23 measures the width between the outermost projecting points but expressly disregards mirrors, lighting, tyre bulge at ground level and seven other things. Reg. 24(3): "The drawbar is included in the calculation of the overall length of a trailer" — the drawbar counts in, as in France and Italy and contrary to Finland. Reg. 25 measures the outfit with the car's and the caravan's longitudinal axes in the same vertical plane. The height is measured under Reg. 36(3) from the ground to the vehicle's highest point, and "highest point of the vehicle" is defined as including "all apparatus, appliances, containers, fittings, loads, implements, machinery, objects, parts, platforms, receptacles or removable superstructures" — a roof box and bicycles therefore count in.
An open question that does not help the caravan. Reg. 32, in the version given by S.I. 136/2015 Reg. 9, says that a vehicle complying with Annex I to 96/53 on an international journey is to be taken to comply with Reg. 3–31:
A vehicle, or a combination of vehicles, which complies with the maximum weights, maximum dimensions and related characteristics set out in respect of the vehicle or combination in Annex I to the Council Directive for the time being in force, when undertaking an international journey, is to be taken to comply with Regulations 3 to 31 inclusive.
A Swedish caravan holiday in Ireland is an international journey, so the question is reasonable. But Annex I sets nothing "in respect of" an M1 with an O trailer, since the directive under art. 1(1)(a) does not cover those categories, and a rule that sets no figure cannot be complied with. That the legislator in 2017 expressly wrote art. 1(1)(a) into the exception rule points the same way. This is our reading of the text, not a judgment, but the reading that makes 2.55 permissible requires an empty set to count as satisfied.
Method note: the amendments were not cosmetic. Reg. 26, 28, 29(1), 30(1), 32 and 36 have all been amended since 2003. Had the 2003 version been quoted straight off, the height cell would have become "no general limit" — the 2003 Reg. 36 set only 4.57 m for double-deck buses — and the 2.55 exceptions would have looked reachable by anyone with a heavy trailer. The list of amendments was taken from irishstatutebook.ie's chronological table for 2003 (isbc/si2003_1-50), which was updated up to 1 August 2026, and every amending instrument touching Reg. 23–32 and 36 was retrieved and read. Reg. 24, 25, 27 and 31 stand in their original wording. There is no consolidated version: the page prints <!-- No Revised SI available -->.