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Irish Rail - All Dates for May Already Sold Out? Drogheda to Dublin.

Posted by emmagibbs42 on 03/19/18 03:47 AM

Hello!
We were hoping to spend a day in Dublin while vacationing in mid-May. We will be staying close to Drogheda for this portion of the trip and were hoping to take the train into Dublin from either the Drogheda station or Laytown (either would be easily accessible from where we are staying). However, when I go to buy tickets online nothing is available for the dates we will be there.

The message I see is as follows: "If this train is an InterCity service it is sold out. Please select an alternative. To purchase DART or Commuter tickets, please go to your local station."

Would there be any hope of tickets becoming available closer to the actual day of departure? Or a chance of being able to buy in person? Advice/suggestions for the train in general?

Thank you!

Posted by acraven

Washington DC

03/19/18 03:58 AM

27163 posts

Perhaps the train you need is a commuter train. I'm just speculating; I've never been to Ireland.

Posted by emmagibbs42 OP

03/19/18 04:09 AM

22 posts

Perhaps. I was given the impression in this thread that Drogheda does operate a "commuter" train, but it isn't clear. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/ireland/transportation-logistics-for-day-in-dublin-may-2018. The DART service begins in Malahide which would be at least a 30 minute drive to the station, but still easier than driving into Dublin....

Posted by Tammy (aka Diveloonie) 🤿

Last Frontier aka Alaska 🏔️

03/19/18 05:26 AM

3227 posts

I would be very surprised if the train was sold out this far in advance. In fact, I thought you could only purchase tkts 60 days in advance. We didn’t take that route, but when we were there, we had no problems-just showed up at the station and bought our tkts.

Posted by emmagibbs42 OP

03/19/18 10:40 PM

22 posts

Paul, are you meaning that when the irishrail website says that the train is "sold out" it just means that they've sold all of the tickets allotted for advanced online purchase? I've seen many people recommending advanced online purchase of tickets because they are more convenient and cost less. It seems I have simply waited too long to purchase ours ahead of time. Thank you for all for your replies.

Posted by Laura

Virginia, USA

03/19/18 11:53 PM

5533 posts

Are you using this website
http://www.irishrail.ie

Posted by emmagibbs42 OP

03/20/18 12:02 AM

22 posts

Yes, that is the website I am using. I've played around with the dates and now see available tickets. I think I was just changing the dates up at the top of the page in the gray area, but the green sliding calendar wasn't changing last night for some reason. Definitely a user error. Thanks!

Posted by Jim

Bern, Switzerland

03/24/18 11:17 AM

981 posts

Most likely you are way too early to buy tickets and on top of that most Irish buy their ticket on the day, so I doubt very much it can be sold out.

Posted by emmagibbs42 OP

03/24/18 11:14 PM

22 posts

Updating since my reply above was not very clear. I successfully purchased tickets a few days ago. The night I originally tried to purchase I had a bad WiFi connection and while the dates I put in the first calendar where correct, the calendar below (running parallel) was not updating. This prevented the available tickets from updating to the correct date. Definitely a user error on my part. In case others are looking to buy Irish Rail tickets in advance you can buy them up to 90 days in advance, Please see the FAQ link from the Irish Rail website http://www.irishrail.ie/contact-us/faqs?i=4220.

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