I've been watching the Irish-Rail website off and on for a month to make sure fares remain stable and available. Our son and his wife are leaving us tomorrow and traveling by train from Galway to Dublin. The fare for tomorrow has been 20€ for a flexible ticket. Today I told them to just go by the train station and buy their tickets (they had one question to ask an agent). The agent answered their question but told them to buy their tickets online because to buy the same tickets from an agent would cost about 38€ each. So we ended up booking them online anyway. That's a big price difference for buying online (20€) vs at the station (38€). Also the only ticket delivery method for buying online was to imput a code (which had been emailed to them) in a ticket machine at the train station to get their physical tickets. There was no e-delivery of tickets. Very easy actually, just don't wait to buy your tickets at a train station in Ireland.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
It's a good fact to spread around. We have it on our Ireland rail page and in the transportation section of Rick's Ireland guidebook.
Posted by
Waterville, Ireland
409 posts
Another thing you should note as well is that not all train stations HAVE ticket machines! So when I stayed in Rathdrum and went on to Dublin I didn't have the ability to buy it on line - i had to buy it on the train and pay more.
Another "jiggy" thing about Irish Rail - the have 10 euros to Dublin sales fairly regularly - and they are NEVER from Killarney. An expensive proposition.
Alternatively, Dublin Bus and a few other private bus companies do Galway to Dublin and other routes... Often cheaper than Irish Rail and sometimes weird times like 3:00 a.m. that will get you to Dublin for an early flight.
Susan
Waterville, Ring of Kerry
Posted by
135 posts
We also did the online purchase. They were upgrading the online ticketing system and we could only order for our dates about 2 weeks before we were leaving. I emailed the ticket office and they told me the same thing---65 euros each Dublin to Ennis if we bought them through an agent and but only 11 euros each online! We had to change trains in Athenry. Interestingly there was no agent there---just a tiny station. Anyone could get on or off the train there. We never saw anyone checking tickets on either train. Wonder how many riders jump on at Athenry and never pay anything????