About Irish Callcards - The Irish Callcards Site

The Beginning

Telecom Eireann first introduced phonecards into the Republic of Ireland in the year 1988. The brand name chosen for these cards was “CallCard”. Telecom Eireann, Ireland's state-owned telecommunications company became privatized in 1999. Subsequently the name of the company was changed to Eircom. During the beginning of Telecom Eireann's phone[...]

The Chipcard Introduction

Chip cards, or smart cards shared the same form factor as credit cards and other magnetic type phonecards. This made them ideal to use for phonecards, as they were much more convenient than cash which cluttered up wallets. These cards had a microchip installed in a position on the card. Variations have been known to exist, although generally it was[...]

Advertising, special and limited edition Callcards

As with other countries worldwide, the idea of using telephone cards to promote important events, release special limited edition cards as well as use phonecards for advertising started from 1991 onwards. Telecom Eireann saw this as a way to entice collectors with a greater variety of cards, but also make some money from advertisers interesting in [...]

Definitive Callcard sets

Both Telecom Eireann and Eircom released definitive ranges of Callcards. These definitive cards were quite common to find, as they generally had very large print runs. There were some exceptions to this rule, particularly when is comes to the earlier and later sets, as well as some chipset variations. As Definitive cards were typically produced an[...]

Music cards

EMI Music teamed up with Telecom Eireann to bring out a music promoting Callcard for the Irish band “Blink”. Further cards for Tina Turner, Gareth Brooks and Diana Ross were also produced[...][...]