According to the Irish official communications regulator, the country has about 500,000 residents subscribed to Netflix. That represents roughly 42 percent of the country’s population, putting Ireland behind only Canada and the US for subscriptions. However, while the European nation is close to the United States in terms of Netflix viewers, its library has considerably fewer shows and movies. If you asked us, we would say that’s unreasonable.
If you’re an Irish, you’re probably wondering how to get American Netflix in Ireland. While the answer to this question is pretty simple, the processes can make things complicated. If you’re looking for a way to stream your favorite American movies and shows, you’re in luck. You only need a VPN service for unblocking Netflix, and here, we’ve detailed the entire process. Since there’s also an abundance of options, we’ve recommended and reviewed the best VPNs that work with the US Netflix. Let’s check them out!
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Our Top VPN Recommendations
While the market is packed with a plethora of options when it comes to VPNs, not all of them can unblock Netflix. If watching US Netflix in Ireland is something high up on your priority list, then you should take a closer look at our recommendations below.
NordVPN
No matter the metrics you use, NordVPN is always one of the first services that come to mind when talking about the best VPN providers. Impressively, NordVPN has 5000+ servers across dozens of countries worldwide, which puts it at the top when it comes to server counts.
The company also operates dozens of servers specialized especially for Netflix. Thus, even if you’re trying to watch Netflix from the remotest of places in Ireland, you’ll find a working server. It also helps that the service is super-fast, so you can enjoy streaming with no buffering. And if you encounter an issue, their customer support is impeccable.
For pricing, you will hardly find a service that offers more value for money. The provider doesn’t only offer 3 cheap plans but also provides other enticements, the most impressive of which is the 30-day money-back guarantee.
ExpressVPN
Coming up next is ExpressVPN, which with its high speed and a range of high-end features, is favorites to thousands of people globally. Server-wise, this provider is only behind NordVPN, managing over 3000 servers across 94 countries, including the world’s most powerful countries.
Incredibly, ExpressVPN offers a special provision, where they offer Netflix recommendations. So, if you’re having difficulties choosing a suitable server for Netflix, just look at their recommendations. ExpressVPN’s service is also regarded as the fastest in the market, which is a big plus for streaming enthusiasts.
In terms of customer care, you’ll hardly find a service that betters this one. Not only do they offer round-the-clock support, but they also provide comprehensive FAQs for people willing to find solutions without support. The prices are also attractive, and there is a 49 percent discount on the 12-month package.
For people who just want to test the waters, the 30-day money-back guarantee allows that. You don’t like the service and unwilling to continue? Just inform them and they will refund your money.
PureVPN
Even though PureVPN is not as popular as the first two VPNs in our review, that shouldn’t take anything away from the incredible work they’ve done to ease Netflix access for their users. Despite boasting significantly fewer servers compared to our first two providers, PureVPN is one of the first options you must consider when trying to watch Netflix.
A fast network seems to be one of the pre-requisites for any VPN that wants to unblock Netflix geo-restrictions. PureVPN understands that, so they’ve tried their best to offer decent speeds. Unlimited data transfer, unlimited server switching, and unlimited bandwidth are also some of the things that make PureVPN popular.
However, the company leaves a lot to desire when it comes to customer support. While they offer attractive plans, some Netflix enthusiasts may be unwilling to take a chance with the average quality of support.
How to Get American Netflix in Ireland with a VPN
In truth, using a VPN looks quite straightforward. Nonetheless, not everyone is tech-savvy enough to find it simple. So, if you are serious about finding out how to watch US Netflix in Ireland, we have simplified everything in four easy steps below.
- Sign up with one of our recommended VPN providers.
- After you have successfully bought a plan, install their application onto your device.
- Launch the application and choose one of the servers in the United States.
- Once you have connected to the server, open the Netflix website and log in to your account.
- Now you can start streaming the American Netflix library in Ireland.
Sometimes, some of the servers aren’t able to unblock Netflix, so you can try finding out the ones that work from your VPN provider.
Netflix Ireland Vs American Netflix
Despite the fact that residents of both countries pay the same price for Netflix, the libraries are considerably different in terms of content. As at the time of writing this article, the Irish Netflix has 5500 movies and shows. On the other hand, the US library has a total of 5936 for movies and TV shows, which means Irish people currently don’t have access to almost 436 movies and shows that the US people enjoy.
Does Netflix Make Attempts to Block VPNs?
Of course, Netflix tries to block VPN services. And to their credit, they have been successful at it to some extent. About 4 years ago, the company announced it international expansion, which was great news.
However, they simultaneously announced their plans to clampdown on the use of VPN to access the platform. Apparently, they wanted to ensure customers only had access to their local library, much to the dismay of many users.
As we said, they have been partially successful at it. However, since the only way of blocking VPNs is to find and block all the IP addresses associated with each VPN provider manually, it’s an enormous task.
There’re millions of IPs to scour through, which is too mammoth of a task, even for a company like Netflix. Besides, VPNs also upset them by changing IPs and concealing their real identity.
While a lot of VPNs are currently struggling to get past the restrictions, some providers like NordVPN and ExpressVPN continue to maneuver the systems with no hassle. They do this while requiring users to pay a small fee, which true Netflix devotees are likely to find cheap.
Why Does Netflix Have Geo-Restrictions?
Using a VPN to unblock Netflix is illegal, we must note. This is why some Ireland residents wonder why they must even need VPN to enjoy the platform, despite paying as much as US residents. In truth, it’s somewhat ironic and strange, but we’ll explain the reasons here.
If you’re wondering why you can only access your local library on Netflix, everything boils down to distribution rights. It’s not the wish of the streaming company to seem evil as well, but circumstances have tied their hands.
While they also produce their own movies and shows, they buy most of the content on their platform. However, they don’t get the rights for every region in the world as different regions often cost different prices. And since a large percentage of their users live in the United States, they invest more in the US catalog. This is logical, in our opinion.
Of course, this doesn’t mean they do not invest in smaller nations like Ireland at all -it just means the Irish library misses out on many movies and shows.
In a bid to solve this problem, Netflix has started producing lots of content and making them available in almost every country. However, some countries won’t still get access, depending on the content’s context since there is censorship in some nations.
Summing it up, distributing content equally would cause Netflix to quickly go out of business. Since they don’t want that to happen, we’d be shocked if anything changed about this in the foreseeable future. You can only hope, but you can at least bypass their geo-restrictions and enjoy your favorite content for the time being.
Is It Advisable to Use a Free VPN for Netflix?
For many reasons, we don’t recommend free VPNs for Netflix. Apart from implementing multiple limitations, free services also throttle speed, limit bandwidth, and usually have a very limited number of servers, most of which are often overcrowded.
Additionally, most free VPNs keep data logs, so they can’t guarantee privacy. In fact, some go as far as selling your information to third parties. Besides, they don’t offer reliable security protocols, sometimes leaving you with a false sense of security and privacy.
Lastly, a VPN provider that will unblock Netflix must refresh IP addresses constantly as the streaming company is always blocking VPNs. Sadly, this is unaffordable for free VPNs and they even don’t have the inducement to invest. By chance, you may find a free VPN that works for Netflix, but chances are it will be detected and blacklisted within a very short period.
To sum it up, you need to buy a premium VPN if you are serious about getting access to geo-restricted content on US Netflix from Ireland. The VPNs in our article all work effortlessly, and if you ever encounter any problem, they are always reachable via their support.
Final Thoughts
Not being able to enjoy the same content as people residing in some other countries can feel like discrimination. That said, we believe you can at least seek solace from the fact that a VPN can help you access whatever content that is unavailable in your country.
For Irish people searching for how to get American Netflix in Ireland, we hope our instructions were simple enough. A blockbuster movie is out on Netflix and you can’t watch it because you’re not in the US? Those days are now very far behind you. If you have any questions or need help, let us know in the comments below.
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