It's goodbye soon to one of the best-known Irish registrations, IL for Fermanagh. The IL mark has been around since cars first went on Irish roads over 100 years ago, being part of a system that had I as its primary letter.
Counties were then allocated secondary letters alphabetically - IA was Antrim, IB Armagh, IC Carlow, ID Cavan and so on.
The Republic departed from that system in 1987 because letter options were running out. It remains in the North and other marks such as DZ for Antrim and LZ for Armagh took over when IA and IB were exhausted. In the 1950s, distinctive number plates were held by Egbert Trimble (IL 9000), proprietor of the county's best-known newspaper, The Impartial Reporter and John Brooke, later Lord Brookeborough, (IL9999).
Later figures came first, followed by IL. After that Fermanagh registrations incorporated IL alphabetically, working from AIL onwards. Cars registered in the county are now getting the YIL letters and that's the end: there's no ZIL.
Fermanagh's new identification is going to be IG which for some odd reason wasn't allocated back in the early days of motoring. It will start as IG 1, IG and IG 3 so getting to BIG 1 will clearly take a long time.
Des Elton runs a company in Enniskillen, Fermanagh's county town that sells IL plates, with most sales going to Britain. He quotes sums like GIL with three figures going for £1,500 to £1,600 sterling. BIL with four figures should be worth about £900 while GIL with four figures is around £550. Significantly there was no KIL released.
Des Elton's company Speedy Registrations has also managed to sell a handful of the old plates from the Republic. "People from here bought cars down there and they got some wonderful numbers and we have been able to sell them on. Some like IT for Leitrim and IP for Kilkenny gave wonderful possibilities. IG will be a good seller but we will have to wait a long time."