You don't need to get a phone before you travel - you can text your number to your family when you arrive if you get a Tesco phone as Tony suggests. Coverage here is generally quite comprehensive with the occasional local weak spot - more in rural areas than in towns and cities.

I agree with Tony. I have a phone I purchased at Tesco. The minutes I purchased last summer are good through 2014. We have used the phone three times now and will be bring it with us this June.

Meteor shops also stock phones for 20euro just in case you dont see a tesco straight off.

We bought a Mobal.com phone for around $30. There are no use contracts and you pay as you go for any calls you make/receive.

For us, it is more of an insurance policy should we have a breakdown or emergency while in Ireland.

Here is the link to their info page: http://www.mobal.com/international-cell-phones/ .

p.s. I should add that I had one of these phones back in 2006 when we spent 2 wks in the UK and it worked perfectly. Because the phone belonged to my employer, I had to buy my own phone for this upcoming Ireland holiday.

Is it true that my AT&T iPhone won' work in Ireland? has anyone had any direct experience with this? I think getting a international roaming plan for a month would be just as inexpensive as buying a phone and paying for the minutes, if my phone will work.

yes your att phone will work...i didn't think it would but when i got off the plane in dublin i turned mine on just to see if i could get a signal...wah lah, it asked me if i wanted to change the time to current time, i said yes...i had a full signal at all times and once i think it was the phone provider on the screen change...just once i think....but even though folks knew i was gone, they tried to call me just the same...i didn't answer the calls beause it was a work phone and i was scared to death the calls would cost the moon....

you might just check and see what att charges for texts...this past year i forwarded my phone to my boss when we got ready for take off and then i still got about ten text messages while in ireland ....so that means the calls went to my boss but i could still get text messages....i didn't answer the text either...lol....

some wonderful friends took us to tescos and we bought a phone for 20 euros and 20 eruos worth of time...the reception was good and at the time calls to the u.s. were 2 cents per minute...glad to hear from tony they are now 1 cent.....we still have minutes left from the trip this past year but will check with someone smarter than me to see how much time we have left and buy more if needed....

Thanks Oma! I thought it would but after the OP I wasn't sure. I have all ready checked on the $ for an international roaming plan as well as text and data.

Hi Karen---I believe that you and I discussed this several months ago on this site.http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g186591-i88-k4805042-Cell_Phones_one_more_question-Ireland.html#35898726

Hopefully the link I pasted will function.

We add some sort of international plan to our AT&T iPhones each time we leave the country and I had the original 1st G iPhone until I finally got the new one this fall. (Verizon iPhones did not have GSM and therefore could not be used in Europe.)

The rates and included bandwidth vary by country, but I am fairly sure we paid $50 for 50MB of data, plus 99 cents/ min of phone calls and a flat $10 for 100 texts. I only texted within Ireland with family members. Texting seems even more popular in Ireland than in the U.S.

As with all things cell phone related, everyone seems to have a different payment plan so worth investigating. We traveled to London and then Ireland on the same trip, so it was easier to have our own phones working as soon as we hit the ground in London so that we could contact the car service. On an earlier trip to Ireland, I just borrowed a top-up phone from my aunt, but we have become too connected to our own phones now.

Hi Noreen- I do remember discussing this question before and even before that I was pretty certain my phone would work. I will add the international roaming, data and text plans shortly before I leave. And the international calling about a month before so I can call and confirm my reservations at a less expensive rate.

I don't know why the OP thought their phone wouldn't work in Ireland and just wanted to double check that they would.

Thanks K.