Dial "O" for Operator
In the UK you'd dial 100
The number of a operator will be 0 or 411.
To dial any UK number from an Irish mobile, just replace the trunk prefix 0 of the UK domestic number with +44.
On a mobile: +44 20 (8-digit London number) On a landline or fax: 00 44 20 (8-digit London number)
Before there were dial or push button phones, there were crank phones. You lifted the ear piece from the hook, tuned the crank on the side of the phone, which rang the operator. She would answer the phone with "Number, please." You told her the number, and she would dial it for you.
Direct dialing just means that you dial the number yourself, without asking an operator to dial it for you.
+353 <phone number>, where + is your country's international dialing prefix
All Irish mobile phones start with 083, 085, 086 or 087. To phone one, dial 00 353 and the mobile number without its first zero. So if you were dialling an 086 number you would dial 00353 86 and then the rest of the number.
You would dial 100 for general operator services.
Confirm with your operator your phone can make overseas calls. Dial your phone's international access number. If you don't know it your operator can provide it. Next dial 81, the country code for Japan. Next dial the area code in Japan WITHOUT the "0" at the front. Then dial the local number. For example, using 011 as your international access code, to call the telephone number 03-123-4567 in Tokyo, from the US dial 011-81-3-123-4567.
In the UK, if you need the Coast Guard in an emergency, dial 999 and ask the operator for the Coast Guard.