Ireland MCP

Ask ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot about Ireland, and get answers that cite official public sources.

Ireland MCP is a free connector for AI assistants. It lets your assistant look up Irish public data, such as census figures, train times, weather warnings, house prices and Dáil business, and tell you where every number came from. Website: irishopendata.ie.

• Free, with no account or API key. Paste one web address into your assistant.
• Read-only. It only looks things up. It cannot change or submit anything.
• Official sources. Answers come back with the publisher, licence and the time the data was fetched, so you can check them.
• Open source under the MIT licence. An unofficial community project, not a government service.

What can I ask?

• “What is the latest population profile for Galway city or County Cork?”
• “Are there Met Éireann weather warnings near Dublin today?”
• “What did houses sell for in Ennis last year?”
• “When is the next train from Heuston, and are there disruptions?”
• “Who are the current TDs for my constituency, and what bills are active?”
• “What protected habitats, monuments, planning applications or census areas are near this point?”

The assistant writes the answer; Ireland MCP supplies the data and its source. Check the date and source before you rely on a figure.

Set it up in 30 seconds

The server address is https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp. It needs no sign-in.

• ChatGPT: Plugins → + → Add custom MCP server → paste the address → No authentication. Full steps.

• Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste the address.

• GitHub Copilot CLI:

  copilot mcp add --transport http ireland https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp
  

• VS Code: add .vscode/mcp.json:

  { "servers": { "ireland": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp" } } }
  

Check it works. Ask: "Using the ireland tools, give me the Census 2022 profile of Ennis, Co Clare, and the Met Éireann forecast for Galway. Cite the sources." The answer should link https://data.cso.ie/table/F1015 and the Met Éireann forecast URL.†

† The forecast URL is http://: Met Éireann's https:// host currently redirects to an origin that fails TLS.

Beta features

Beta features are off on the hosted server. You can turn them on when you run your own copy.

Beta: Irish law & your rights (annual leave and working time)

Not legal advice. For your own situation, contact Citizens Information, the Workplace Relations Commission or a solicitor.

An optional pilot finds Irish employment-law evidence and quotes it with links. It covers only two topics today: annual leave and working time.

• What it reads: two Citizens Information guidance pages, the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 and the Irish Statute Book page listing that Act's later changes.
• Act text is as passed in 1997. It may not include later amendments. Check the changes page and the cited source.
• Citizens Information blocks automated access today. Its firewall refused the pilot's requests on 26 October 2026, so a sync may fetch only the Irish Statute Book pages. We will not disguise the pilot as a browser. Wider coverage needs permission or an official export from the Citizens Information Board; we are asking.
• AI summaries can be wrong. Every answer quotes its sources. Read them.

Without the beta, the default legislation source quotes Irish law as enacted, live from the Irish Statute Book. In this revision that covers Acts, statutory instruments and the Constitution; check ireland_describe for what a given server offers. The beta adds Citizens Information guidance and stored, versioned evidence.

Try it on your own machine:

npm run legal:sync    # fetch the seed pages into .irish-legal-cache
npm run legal:serve   # chat page and tools at http://127.0.0.1:4173

legal:sync exits with an error while any page fails. Today that is expected for the Citizens Information pages; the Irish Statute Book pages are still saved.

Or add it to the main server with LEGAL_ENABLED=true (off by default). Read the beta assessment and pilot guide first.

---

Hosted endpoint: https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp Transport: Streamable HTTP. Auth: none. Writes: none. Registry: io.github.c-mongan/ireland-mcp on the official MCP Registry.

Connect your assistant

Client	Current setup
Claude custom connector	Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → URL https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp → no auth.
ChatGPT plugin	In ChatGPT on the web, open Plugins → + → Add custom MCP server. Name it Ireland Open Data, enter https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp, select No authentication, review the warning and select Create as a plugin. Install it, open a new Work chat and select @Ireland Open Data. Reuse the installed plugin if it is already present. See the OpenAI plugin quickstart and tested connection route.
VS Code	Install link (paste into a browser or run open on it): vscode:mcp/install?%7B%22name%22%3A%22ireland%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22http%22%2C%22url%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fmcp.irishopendata.ie%2Fmcp%22%7D. Or add .vscode/mcp.json: { "servers": { "ireland": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp" } } }.
VS Code Insiders	Install link: vscode-insiders:mcp/install?%7B%22name%22%3A%22ireland%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22http%22%2C%22url%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fmcp.irishopendata.ie%2Fmcp%22%7D.
Cursor	Deeplink: cursor://anysphere.cursor-deeplink/mcp/install?name=ireland&config=.... Decoded config: { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp" }.
GitHub Copilot CLI	copilot mcp add --transport http ireland https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp or put the JSON below in ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json.
Claude Code	claude mcp add --transport http ireland https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp
Local (stdio, no hosted endpoint)	npx -y ireland-mcp. Add typed tools with --toolsets=cso,irish-rail. See self-hosting.

Portable Copilot / MCP JSON:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ireland": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp",
      "tools": ["*"]
    }
  }
}

What's inside

Count	Value	Definition
Data sources	39	Upstream public-data sources, one module each. The cross combiner is not a source.
Available without an operator key	37 of 39	NTA realtime needs an operator key. Logainm needs a Gaois operator account and API key.
Catalogue operations	94	90 source operations plus 4 cross-source ones (list_sources, nearby, ireland_snapshot, ireland_resolve_place), all callable through ireland_call.
Default tools	9	What tools/list returns: 5 meta tools plus search, fetch, nearby and ireland_resolve_place.
Tools with ?toolsets=all	101	Every operation as a typed tool, plus the 5 meta tools, search and fetch.
Prompts	3	area_profile, commute_check, compare_counties.
Dataset cards	39 of 39	Sources with a card (topics, geography levels, time coverage, join keys) that ireland_catalogue filters on. See dataset cards.

Last full run of every operation then in the catalogue against the hosted endpoint: docs/live-all-ops.md (2026-10-26): 78 of 82 pass, 1 fail; 3 need an operator key (NTA, Logainm).

The default profile covers statistics (CSO, Eurostat, ECB, World Bank), the Oireachtas and Irish Statute Book, Met Éireann, transport (Irish Rail, Luas, NTA, TFI stops, bikes), property, planning, heritage, environment, energy, tourism, lobbying, pay-gap reports, council budgets and more. An optional Irish legal and Citizens Information pilot is off by default; see Beta features.

The default profile registers 39 source modules in src/registry.ts. The default nearby, ireland_resolve_place, search and fetch shortcuts sit above these sources. ireland_resolve_place maps any place to its county, council, LEA, constituency, NUTS3 and ED codes; see the place crosswalk. The optional pilot rows require LEGAL_ENABLED=true and an ingested corpus; check ireland_catalogue for the modules available on an endpoint. See new provider access and limits.

For counts, sums, joins and rankings over many rows, ireland_query loads whole tables on the server (CSO tables, planning applications, Pobal scores, crosswalk lists, property sales, pay-gap reports, EU projects and council budgets) and returns only the answer rows, with each input's provenance. planning_search returns exact totals and pages with offset; planning_stats counts applications and proposed homes nationally. See server-side queries.

Every source has a dataset card: topics, geography levels, time coverage, update cadence, join keys and licence. Ask ireland_catalogue for, say, {"geo_level": "lea", "topic": "housing"} to list only the operations with that data, and ireland_describe with a source for its full card.

Domain	Source id	Publisher / source	Operations	Licence
places/property	failte-ireland	Fáilte Ireland accommodation and attractions	1	CC BY 4.0
transport	tfi-static	TFI NaPTAN static stops	1	CC BY 4.0
environment	gsi	GSI groundwater vulnerability	1	CC BY 4.0
places/property	logainm	Logainm / Gaois placenames — operator key required	1	CC BY 4.0
stats	ncse	NCSE school allocations (operations)	3	Creative Commons Attribution; check dataset terms
stats	cso	Central Statistics Office (CSO) PxStat	4	CC BY 4.0
economy	world-bank	World Bank Open Data	2	CC BY 4.0
stats	eurostat	Eurostat Statistics API

The civic-source additions and GeoHive layer selection are described in civic source notes. Counts describe the code in this revision, not a deployment receipt. Check the connected server with ireland_catalogue; verify a release with node scripts/live-civic.mjs --url https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp.

Why it's lean

Most data MCPs expose every typed tool up front. Ireland MCP keeps the default tools/list to 9 tools, 14,784 characters, about 3,696 tokens (toolsets=all is 101 tools, about 30k tokens) (npm run measure:tools). CI fails if that list grows past 16,000 characters.

Need typed tools anyway?

Surface	Use
Default HTTP	/mcp lists only ireland_catalogue, ireland_describe, ireland_call, ireland_query, ireland_about, search, fetch, nearby, ireland_resolve_place.
Source toolsets	/mcp?toolsets=cso,irish-rail lists selected typed tools too.
One source path	/mcp/x/{source} lists that source's typed tools, for example /mcp/x/met-eireann.
Everything	/mcp?toolsets=all lists all available tools and is useful for debugging, not routine chat.
Local stdio	npx -y ireland-mcp --toolsets=cso or --toolsets=all.

max_tokens defaults to about 2,000 output tokens and can be set from 100 to 8,000. Large results return truncated, counts and narrowing hints instead of flooding the context.

Hosted or self-hosted

• Use the hosted endpoint (https://mcp.irishopendata.ie/mcp) unless you have a reason not to. It's free, needs no keys, and the maintainer keeps it running.
• Run it yourself with npx -y ireland-mcp (stdio), npm run dev:http (local HTTP), or your own Azure deployment. See docs/self-hosting.md.
• Contribute a source if something Irish and public is missing. See Contributing.

Privacy and usage counts

• Read-only, no accounts, and no argument values or IP addresses in logs or telemetry.
• The hosted service keeps aggregate usage counts in PostHog: which sources and client apps are used, with no identities. The website counts anonymous page views without cookies. PRIVACY.md lists every field.
• Self-hosted copies never send usage counts unless you configure PostHog. An Azure deployment from the templates exports traces and metrics to your own Application Insights; set IRELAND_MCP_OTEL=off to stop that. Local stdio and HTTP send nothing.
• GET /healthz (add ?deep=1 for per-source checks) and a public status feed report service health.

Limits

• Read-only public data only. No login-gated, paid or key-required user data.
• NTA realtime and Logainm placenames need server-side operator keys; every other source works without one.
• Upstream data can be delayed, provisional, incomplete or temporarily down. Stale cache is labelled stale: true and is used only for retryable failures. Permanent request, access and missing-resource errors remain visible.
• Property Price Register values are declared sale prices, not valuations.
• Legislation text is for retrieval and analysis, not legal advice. The optional legal pilot covers only ingested pages. Enacted text, Citizens Information guidance and any permitted consolidation require verification of amendments, commencement and source currency; they do not certify current law.
• Large tables are paginated or truncated. Use fields, limit, cursor and source filters.

Contributing

New sources are the most useful contribution. Request one, or add it yourself:

1. Create src/sources/<id>/index.ts exporting a SourceModule with info, summary, domain, coverage, tools, optional search() and fetchById(). A source with search() must also implement fetchById() for the ids it returns.
2. Keep every tool name source-prefixed, validate args with zod and return the evidence envelope with source URL, licence and attribution.
3. Use ctx.cachedJson / ctx.cachedText so upstream budgets, caching, circuit breakers and stale fallback apply.
4. Add fixtures and tests at the module seam, then add a server-level ireland_call test when useful.
5. Register the module in src/registry.ts, update scripts/live-sanity.mjs, eval cases and docs.
6. Run lint, typecheck, tests, build, inspector and live sanity before opening a PR.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full checklist.

Development commands, evals and the quality loop are in docs/development.md.

Licence and attribution

Layer	Licence / attribution
Code	MIT, copyright Conor Mongan.
Source metadata and returned data	Stays under each publisher licence. Every normal tool response includes source, url, licence, attribution, retrieved_at, cache and truncation metadata.
CSO / Eurostat / ECB / Wikidata / World Bank	Cite CSO, Eurostat, ECB Data Portal, Wikidata contributors and World Bank Open Data respectively; Wikidata is CC0.
Oireachtas / legislation / PSI sources	Cite Oireachtas Open Data, eISB / Office of the Attorney General, PSRA, OPW and other named PSI publishers as shown in responses.
CIB Data Hub / civic directory	CIB statistics: "Contains Irish Public Sector Data licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence", credit the Citizens Information Board. Directory: credit the Éire Civic Tech Directory (MIT, William Kennedy) and the listed project owners.
Optional legal pilot	Preserve per-document citations and Citizens Information Board attribution. Law Reform Commission Revised Acts reuse requires explicit permission; see source policies.
Weather, transport, environment, business and maps	Cite Met Éireann, NTA, Iarnród Éireann, TII/Luas, EirGrid, Marine Institute, Tailte Éireann, NMS, NPWS, EPA, Pobal, CRO, Kohesio/TED and JCDecaux/CityBikes/GBFS as applicable.
Full notice	See NOTICE. Not affiliated with any government body, data publisher or transport operator.

Thank you to the maintainers of Irish-data and public-data MCP projects that helped shape the direction:

Project	What to look at
keithd1998/irlcli	Irish open-data CLI for LLM use.
sumitsimplex/irish-mcps and irishmcp.ie	Irish MCP platform and public-data UX.
faulknco/archaic-stats-mcp	CSO/PxStat MCP focused on Irish statistics.
datagouv/datagouv-mcp	National open-data catalogue MCP pattern.
brockwebb/open-census-mcp-server	Census-data MCP interface and interpretation pattern.
ondata/ckan-mcp-server	CKAN search/query server design.
cyanheads/eurostat-mcp-server	Eurostat MCP implementation.
isakskogstad/OECD-MCP	OECD statistical-data MCP.

Data comes from the publishers listed above, including CSO, data.gov.ie, Met Éireann, OPW, Irish Rail, Oireachtas, GeoHive/Tailte Éireann, National Monuments Service, NPWS, EPA, Pobal, CRO, World Bank, Eurostat, ECB, Wikidata, Kohesio, TED, JCDecaux/CityBikes and others. Please cite the publisher shown in each response.

More

• Evidence: clients tested, screenshots and demo video
• Architecture and request flow
• Self-hosting · Deploying to Azure · Publishing
• Observability · Privacy · Security

Security

Security reports: SECURITY.md. This project is read-only, but MCP servers can still retrieve untrusted web content; clients should follow their normal MCP trust and approval model.