We do use rings but for some reason a lot of electricans seem to prefer radials.
There are two basic reasons. We traditionally used 220V/50Hz, diazed fuses and schuko outlets. It wasn't unusual to see a 3 or 4 row diazed fusebox in a normal house.
We switched over to BS1363 and I think many electricans just continued to wire radially. I suspect some of them just didn't trust the system at all. Many of these guys continued to use neozed fuses well into the 1980s as they didn't consider MCBs reliable enough!!!
People generally like the idea of one fuse per room / one fuse per group of rooms rather than just a couple or rings. At least you can isolate and identify a faulty applience easily.
Also, the typical modern Irish home doesn't exactly lend itself to the use of rings. We've adopted the sprawling bungalow approach to house building so using rings would be far from practical.
I've heard a lot of horror stories about British DIY books used in Ireland though. DIYers confronted with a 16 or 20A radial presuming that it's a ring and whacking on endless extra sockets and then wondering why the fuses keep blowing or worse, trying to "mend" a diazed fuse!!!!
