Need an Irish IP Address to Watch RTE from Ireland > Irish Proxy Server

I have had a few emails asking me if it is possible to use an  Irish proxy or VPN program to watch other channels.  Basically they want to know the answer to the question –  “how can I watch Irish TV in UK or Europe“.  Now as you probably know if you try and stream most programs from any Irish TV station like RTE Player from outside Ireland you’ll get blocked.  This is because the websites check that you’ve got an Irish IP address before being allowed access.  To be fair you can sometimes watch some shows but any premium content like Hurling for example will be blocked automatically.

The solution is to hide your real location by getting an Irish IP address to use.   All you need to do it route your connection through an Irish proxy or VPN service to look like an Irish resident.

First a Word about Finding an Ireland Proxy from a Proxy List

If you use the search engines to locate an Irish proxy there’s a good chance you’ll stumble across a site like one of these –

It will usually include a list of servers, their location and some information about how they’re set up.  On many you’ll find assessments of how secure they are – even categorized into different classes like elite, anonymous and so on.  The suggestion is that these are safe, available proxies which you can use completely free of charge.  Unfortunately this is not quite the truth and it’s not a great idea to use any of these.

These proxy list sites are prepared by using software called scrapers which search the internet checking for open ports on proxy enabled servers.   The problem is that there’s no checks or validation of any of these servers, they’re simply located and added to the list.

This means many of these proxies are completely unsafe to use, some will have been left open accidentally so you’ll be effectively trespassing.  Others will have been hacked or be controlled by hackers and cyber criminals to steal personal information and data and distribute malware to those using them.  Some will be legitimate free resources but it’s almost impossible to detect which are safe and which aren’t.

Even if you were prepared to accept these risks in order to hide your real IP address there’s another important reason why they’re pretty useless and that’s speed.  If you think your web browser is slow, try running it through one of these free proxies and you’ll see it reduced to a crawl especially if you use popular proxies in places like the United States.  As for streaming video from online TV channels they are far to slow to work properly.

Basically free proxies are not worth using any more, plus there’s a real risk of infecting your computer with malware or worse.

Using a Proxy Provider with Irish Proxies

The reality is much like life you get what you pay for.  No-one is going to pay for servers, bandwidth and infrastructure that anyone can use free of charge.  If you want a decent service with security and speed then you need to get one of the many inexpensive VPN services which are available.

So I thought I’d try a few out, the one I’m trying here is accessing a station called RTE player which is an Irish TV Channel. I normally use Identity Cloaker to access this channel, as RTE recently updated the flash player it uses for RTE player which blocks just using a simple Irish proxy.

Identity Cloaker is a VPN based service, and one of the few that will allow you to watch RTE in UK or anywhere outside Ireland. Can you Watch RTE in the UK or US ? Well first of all I had to test it, I tried to access RTE from the UK first without an Irish proxy but it didn’t work too well. Here’s the screen I got.

As you can see it detected  that I wasn’t trying to access from the Republic or Northern Ireland by my IP address and so blocked my access. Not a great surprise, seemingly everything you do online nowadays is tailored to your location and crucially your IP address. Although this is very annoying if you happen to be living or working abroad. The person who asked me to access this was a student from Ireland studying in the US, she just wanted to watch the Late Show on RTE.

Now Using an Irish Proxy Server for RTE Player

Anyway now I have a chance to access the same page after connecting through one of Identity Cloaker’s Irish VPN servers.

Here’s the program, it’s very simple and is not much more than a little drop down box that sits in your Task bar.  This is the PC version here, but the Mac version is very similar.  You simply select one of the Irish proxies and select connect. Of course if I’m just surfing anonymously, which country is not that important, but to bypass the IP restrictions of most media sites online you have to select the right country.

So to watch the BBC iPlayer in Ireland you need to choose a UK server, Hulu and all the US stations need a US server and so on.   The network is growing fast so you have access to a lot of the worlds media now with this program. In fact they now have servers in the following locations Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italian, Dutch, Japan, USA, UK to name just a few – plus unlike many companies you get access to all of them for your subscription.

Many companies just let you have access to one country and charge extra for access to the others.   However if you want to watch RTE then you’ll need a company who has an Irish IP address list. There is some incredible content available over the world through these connections – try checking out the US TV channels, the Canadian or Australian there are loads of fantastic content.

I actually use the French servers a lot as my kids can practice their French by watching their favorite shows on M6 Replay (the French Media Player).  Others are the amazing Pandora, the online jukebox which is restricted to the US. Anyway here we’re just concerned with using  the Irish proxy in order to connect to the RTE player web site. You’ll need to restart your browser when you  connect through a proxy server or VPN. So I select an Irish proxy and restarted my browser.   You can see the change straight away, what you see is decided by your IP address, my home page has switched to Google.IE and all my search results would now be based on Irish results.

This would happen whilst I was connected to the Irish proxy by default.  But what I wanted to check was if I still got blocked from the RTE Player web site. Well I went to the RTE player web site and it worked straight away,  here’s the same web page as above when I accessed via the Irish proxy server.

Here you can see I was able to access the RTE player with no restrictions because it believed I had an Irish IP address like this.  If you’re outside the country and not using some Irish proxy or VPN then you’d get the international version which allows limited access.

Just as I can watch BBC iPlayer, ITV, Channel 4 by choosing a UK server or Hulu, NBC and Pandora selecting a US Server. Here’s a method using an Irish proxy well actually a VPN.

Once you see how easy it is to use and the amazing shows that you can stream from all across the globe it will open up the internet so much more. You will never get blocked based on location at all, just as long as Identity Cloaker have a server for it. They’re definitely the best choice for an Irish server.

Try it out, the subscriptions are monthly and you can cancel whenever you like. Most of the other TV proxy companies are charging more than they do for a solitary country –

Check out the 10 day trial here first.

FAQ – Ireland Proxy Service

We had to stop the comments on this post as there was so much spam. The old ones are below but here’s a few more questions we’ve received since then.

Do You Still use Identity Cloaker to get an IP Address from Ireland?

I still use Identity Cloaker and it has continued to work very well with RTE (13 years ago). However like most of use I use mobile devices more than my computer and the Cloaker software works best on a computer. So I use NordVPN more now, it has plenty of Irish IP addresses and has apps on most common devices – you can check it out here – Latest discounts on NordVPN.

Does Switching to an Ireland IP address cause any issues?

Yes it can do simply because of the huge number of websites which use geo-blocking in 2022. When you’re connected to a Irish IP you may find that you get blocked from sites you normally use when connected. For example I can use RTE with an Irish IP address but I’ll get blocked from the BBC when connected. You either have to drop the connection or switch to a server in the right location.

Is Changing your IP Address/Using a VPN Illegal?

Definitely not, at least not in the vast majority of countries. It is illegal in Iraq and North Korea and in some countries like China, Turkey and Russia you’re only supposed to use ‘approved VPN services’ – although millions use them anyway. Most companies install VPN client software as standard on their laptops and mobile devices simply because it keeps their data private especially when travelling. Using a VPN is not only legal but in fact a very sensible security practice when using secure sites online.

Can you Access another location or country with a VPN?

Yes, most VPN services offer servers in lots of different countries as part of their standard subscription. You simply connect to the country you require and you’ll temporarily have an IP address from that country.