Staying in touch when phones and power fail in Ireland

Keep a battery or wind-up FM radio tuned to RTÉ Radio 1 (88 to 90 FM) and your local station; long wave 252 closed in April 2023.[1][2][3] Call 112 or 999 from any phone, with or without credit.[4] If you cannot speak, text 112: no registration is needed, but you need coverage from your own participating Irish mobile provider.[5][6][12] Write your key numbers on paper and agree where the household meets if you cannot reach each other.[7][8]

The scene this guide is for

Friday 24 January 2025. Storm Éowyn takes the power from 768,000 homes, farms and businesses before dawn.[9] Two days later 330,000 are still without it.[9] The last homes are reconnected on 11 February, 18 days after the storm.[10]

Your phone can show full battery and no signal. Mobile sites run on their own batteries, which ComReg’s 2022 study found last from 10 minutes to 8 hours; some are sized only to shut the equipment down safely.[11] After that, the phone in your hand is a torch. There is no reliable nationwide countdown for your local mast: do not assume every mast will last two, four or eight hours. A power bank keeps the handset running; it cannot restore a failed network.[35]

What stops working, and when

Decision rule the radio is your news, the phone is for emergencies only, and paper holds the numbers.

For everyone

1. A radio, and where to tune it

The Office of Emergency Planning (OEP) asks every home to keep a battery, wind-up or solar radio with spare batteries, or to use the car radio.[13] ComReg agrees: broadcast radio keeps working when mobile networks go down.[4] kit options kit options

RTÉ Radio 1 is on 88 to 90 FM across the country.[2] The clearest frequency depends on local reception. The table names transmitter locations, not guaranteed coverage areas. The eight main ones:[1]

Another 34 relay transmitters fill the gaps, from Achill to Waterford City.[1] Do this today: find the clearest setting at home and write it on the radio with a marker. Do the same for your local station: the OEP booklet tells you to follow local radio.[8]

RTÉ Radio 1 stopped broadcasting on long wave 252 on 14 April 2023.[2][3]

2. Getting help: ring first, text if you cannot speak

Ring 112 or 999 if:[14][15]

1. someone is seriously ill or injured, or at risk of dying;
2. someone is in danger in the sea, in the water or along the coast (ask for the Coast Guard);
3. you need the Gardaí or the fire brigade in an emergency.
4. Call 112Call 999

It is free, works with no credit, and uses any network with signal, not just yours. “Emergency calls only” on the screen still means you can dial.[4] Have the number you are calling from, the address and your Eircode ready.[14] Some newer phones can also reach the emergency services by satellite text when there is no network at all.[4]

Text 112 only when you cannot make a voice call. It is mainly for people who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired, but anyone can use it.[5][16] No registration is needed; an optional form lets you add your details and a next of kin.[6][17] You need coverage from your own participating Irish mobile provider; “Emergency calls only” does not mean texts to 112 will work.[12]

Your text needs four things:[6]

1. Which service: ambulance, Coast Guard, fire or Garda.
2. What has happened.
3. County you are texting from.
4. Where exactly: town, road, Eircode or a landmark. Your location is not reliably sent with a text.[16][12]

Keep trying other ways to contact emergency services until ECAS replies, such as asking a neighbour or passer-by to call; a delivery report is not a reply.[12] Replies take about 2 minutes; if nothing comes within 3, send again.[6] Texts are free but may need credit. Do not text 112 from an Irish phone roaming abroad, including in Northern Ireland: it may never arrive.[12] Save a draft with your address and Eircode now, and update it for the real incident. Do not send a practice emergency message.[16]

3. Keep the phone alive

Before a storm, charge every phone and power bank and top up prepay credit.[7] When the power goes, ComReg advises:[4]

• low power mode, and aeroplane mode between check-ins;
• screen brightness down; Bluetooth and Wi-Fi off when not in use;
• no automatic app updates or non-essential notifications;
• charge from the car, with an eye on the car battery.

A common power bank, about the size of a phone and sold as “10,000”, would charge the example phone about twice from empty under the assumptions below. kit options

4. Check your landline today

A landline that plugs into your router, not the wall socket, is an internet phone: it stops when the router does. Router battery backup helps only if the network beyond your house still has power.[4] If your cordless phone’s base plugs into a socket, assume it stops too, and ask your provider what your line needs. A wall phone socket alone does not establish that the service works without power. Ask which equipment needs power and agree a backup arrangement.[36]

If anyone has a monitored care alarm, ask the supplier whether it uses 3G. Eir began switching off 3G on 1 October 2026, starting in Donegal, which also affects GoMo and Lyca; ComReg names care alarms among devices that may stop working.[19]

5. The household plan

The OEP booklet asks for a written plan, because phones, internet or electricity may not be there when you need them.[8] Write down, on one sheet:

5. Numbers: family, neighbours, carers, GP and your phone provider.[4][8]
6. A local meeting point and one outside your area, ideally somewhere you could stay the night. Access to your home may be closed.[20]
7. A contact away from the affected area, someone everyone rings or texts to say they are safe.[21]
8. Who checks on whom among the neighbours.[8]

Also decide together:[8]

These are household planning prompts, not fixed government rules. Talk through what a missed check-in means and keep a paper or in-person fallback rather than relying entirely on a group chat. Keep the plan with the radio, and a photo of it on every phone.[8]

6. Walkie-talkies for the road or the estate

PMR446 walkie-talkies need no licence in Ireland.[22] ComReg puts their range at a few hundred metres in a city to a few kilometres in open countryside.[22] Buy a pair sold as PMR446, with a fixed aerial, for hand-held use.[23] Agree a channel and a listening time with the neighbours (on the hour, say), then test from the kitchens and gates you would actually use. kit options

7. On the water

At sea, ring 112 or 999 and ask for the Coast Guard, or use VHF channel 16.[15] To use a marine VHF radio you need a radio operator qualification (the Short Range Certificate for most pleasure boats) and a Ship Radio Licence.[24] A distress call on channel 16 starts “MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY, this is” and the boat’s name three times, then your position, what is wrong and how many are on board.[24]

For the technically minded

Listening: a scanner, not a transmitter

The licence exemption for receivers covers equipment only capable of reception and inherently incapable of transmission, and forbids passing on what you hear.[25] Check that the particular receiver meets that exemption. Do not assume a two-way handheld programmed to receive only qualifies.

Worth hearing: the Irish Radio Transmitters Society (IRTS) lists 44 amateur voice repeaters with Irish callsigns (16 on the 2-metre band, 25 on 70 centimetres).[26] Do not expect Garda traffic: the Gardaí use the National Digital Radio Service, a secure digital network.[27]

Why the UV-5R is not a walkie-talkie

Cheap dual-band handhelds such as the Baofeng UV-5R can tune to the PMR446 channels, but they are not legal on PMR446: the rules require a fixed aerial, and the UV-5R’s unscrews.[23] Never transmit on one without a licence.

The following is our reading of the cited law, not legal advice. Owning one is a licensing question too. The 1926 Wireless Telegraphy Act needs a licence to keep any radio apparatus unless an exemption covers it,[28] and the receiver exemption does not cover a set that can transmit.[25] Programming it as receive-only does not make it incapable of transmitting. Ask ComReg which licence or exemption applies to your particular set before relying on it.

The amateur licence route

1. Pass the HAREC exam, run by the IRTS for ComReg: 60 multiple-choice questions in two hours, 60% needed in both the technical and the regulations halves. €50, or €25 for students, repeat candidates and people who are retired, unemployed or have a disability. Usually twice a year; next sitting 12 December 2026.[29]
2. Apply to ComReg online for an Amateur Station Licence: €100, or €30 if you are 65 or over or receive a disability allowance or pension.[30]

The IRTS links to the Amateur Radio Emergency Network (AREN), volunteers who train for major emergencies and have supported Civil Defence exercises. Its newest web post is from 2021: ask if it is active near you.[31]

LoRa mesh texting: MeshCore and Meshtastic

Small LoRa boards pair with your phone by Bluetooth and pass text messages from radio to radio, with no mast or internet.[32][33] They need no licence if they stay inside ComReg’s short-range device rules.[23] In practice: set the region to EU 868 and leave the duty-cycle limit on. Meshtastic enforces it by default; switching the override on can break the rules.[32] In that band a node may transmit for about 6 minutes in any hour. kit options

The two do not talk to each other,[33] so the right one is whichever your neighbours run. A public-map snapshot taken at 22:04 UTC on 29 October 2026 contained 313 MeshCore repeater records and 20 Meshtastic node records in the Ireland search area, two of them marked as routers.[34] These are map counts, not live coverage or evidence that a node will work during an outage. Maps show only nodes that report to them; the real test is whether your node hears the nearest repeater from your house. MeshCore’s phone-paired “companion” nodes never relay; only repeaters do.[33] Public repeaters are volunteers’ kit with unknown battery backup: if a mesh is in your plan, put up your own.