Ireland eSIM
Data for Ireland on Vodafone and Three, from $5.89. It never expires, tethering is included, and refills land on the line you already have, with nothing new to install.
- Networks
- Vodafone and Three
- Typical speed
- 61 Mbps typical, 16 Mbps at busy times
- 5G
- yes, non standalone
- Throttle
- None on metered plans
- Tethering
- Allowed on every plan
Plans for Ireland
| Data | Validity | Price per GB | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | Never expires | $5.89 | $5.89 | |
| 3 GB | Never expires | $2.63 | $7.89 | |
| 5 GBMost travellers | Never expires | $1.98 | $9.89 | |
| 10 GB | Never expires | $1.49 | $14.89 | |
| 20 GB | Never expires | $1.39 | $27.89 | |
| 50 GB | Never expires | $1.20 | $59.89 |
Every plan works the moment you land. Unused data returns to your wallet when the line closes, and customers get at least 100 MB of free rescue data a month even at zero balance.
What 61 Mbps actually means in Ireland
Typical download speed on Orbislo in Ireland: 61 Mbps. That sits close to the Europe median of 71 Mbps, which makes Ireland an unremarkable place to be connected, in the good sense.
The tenth percentile is 16 Mbps. That gap between the median and the floor is normal and it is where the frustration lives: the connection is quick most of the time and noticeably slow in the busiest few percent of moments, typically at transport hubs at peak hour.
That is enough for everything most travellers do: maps, messaging, video calls, streaming at high definition, and tethering a laptop for ordinary work. It is not enough to be casual about uploading a day of raw photographs.
Which networks you will be on
Orbislo carries traffic in Ireland on Vodafone and Three. Your phone is not tied to one of them. When the network you are attached to congests or drops, the profile moves you to the other, and it happens without a prompt and without you noticing anything except that the connection kept working.
This matters more than the headline speed. Almost every travel eSIM sold today resells a single upstream agreement per country, so when that one network has a bad hour you have a bad hour with it and your only option is to buy a second eSIM from somebody else. A profile with more than one network behind it can make a decision you never see.
5G in Ireland: yes, non standalone. Worth knowing that 5G on a travel profile is normal rather than special, and that the tenth percentile above is the number that will decide how the trip feels, not the generation label in the status bar.
What data costs in Ireland
A 500 MB plan for Ireland starts at $0.32, which is $0.00 a gigabyte. That is the number to compare between providers, because a headline price attached to a different allowance tells you nothing.
The comparison most providers would rather you did not run is cost per gigabyte actually used. Independent surveys of travel data put the share of purchased data lost to expiry between 20 and 35 percent, because a plan that expires on day thirty deletes what you did not get through. Orbislo data has no expiry date, so the gigabyte you paid for is still there on the next trip. At the same headline price that is 25 to 40 percent more usable data, and in Ireland it means the effective cost is nearer $0.00 a gigabyte than $0.00.
Because nothing expires, the cheapest way to buy for Ireland is to buy slightly less than you think you need and top up if you run out. Topping up takes about ten seconds and does not involve installing anything. Buying too much is the expensive mistake everywhere else and merely a neutral one here.
Landing in Ireland
Install before you fly, on your home wifi. The profile downloads while you still have a connection you trust, then sits dormant until you land in Ireland and it attaches to Vodafone.
On landing there is one thing to check: data roaming has to be switched on for the Orbislo line. It is off by default on both iOS and Android, and it has nothing to do with roaming charges here, because the plan is prepaid and there is no bill to run up. Turn it on for the Orbislo line and leave it off for your home line, and your home number keeps working for calls and bank codes without costing anything.
Coverage across Ireland
The figures above cover Ireland as a whole, and a national figure hides real variation. We publish separate figures for Dublin, Galway and Cork, because the difference between a capital and a coastal town is usually larger than the difference between two countries.
Outside the cities, coverage follows the same pattern it does everywhere: the main roads and the tourist corridors are well served, and it thins in the mountains and on the water. No travel eSIM changes that, because it is the same physical network the local population uses. What a multi network profile changes is which of the available towers you get to use.
Worth knowing about Ireland
- Roam like at home covers the whole European Economic Area, which is every EU country plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, and it was extended to Ukraine and Moldova in 2026.
- Crossing into a country where roaming applies should bring a text from your own operator setting out the fair use policy on your contract, any service that will cost extra, and the emergency contact numbers for the country you have just entered.
- A domestic data bundle is not automatically usable in full abroad. Operators set fair use limits by contract type, and once you pass one they may add a surcharge, though they have to tell you by text before they start charging.
- Both 112 and 999 reach the emergency services free of charge from any mobile or fixed phone. The call handler passes the call to an ambulance, the Gardai, the fire brigade or the coast guard as needed.
- At sea, a boat with a radio should use VHF channel 16 and give its location. Without a radio, calling 112 or 999 from a phone and asking for the Coast Guard gets the same rescue service.
- A text to 112 sent from a foreign phone number never reaches Ireland's emergency service, because texts are routed back to the sender's home network. Only users of Irish mobile networks can text 112, so anyone on a visiting number should call instead.
- Since 3 July 2025, texts delivered by Irish mobile providers from unregistered alphanumeric sender names arrive labelled Likely Scam. Some genuine firms that have not yet registered get the label too, so check the sender separately before tapping any link.
- In the border counties of Donegal, Louth, Monaghan, Leitrim and Cavan, a phone can latch onto a network across the border and start roaming, which can bring unexpected charges. Setting network selection to manual keeps it on an Irish network.
- On Three's prepay service, credit topped up on or after 13 May 2026 expires after 100 days. Free credit, such as starter or registration credit, lapses after 30 days and cannot be spent on roaming or add ons.
How Ireland compares across Europe
- Regional typical speed
- 71 Mbps
- Upstream networks
- 2, Vodafone, Three
- 5G
- Yes, non standalone
- Next fastest nearby
- Andorra, 61 Mbps
- Next slowest nearby
- Hungary, 59 Mbps
- Cities with their own page
- 3: Dublin, Galway, Cork
