Dingle to Dublin via bike and train

June 15, 2025

It was a day with a complicated plan. We had planned a 50 km ride over Conor Pass to Tralee where we planned to catch the train at 13:50 to Dublin. It was a three and a half hour train ride so we would not arrive in Dublin until almost 6 pm. Normally I would not schedule such an aggressive day but we got caught in a combination of commitments that made this the best solution. We are due in St. Andrews, Scotland, in a couple of weeks for a family graduation and we also wanted to visit our friend Mona in Dingle. So, rather than ride to Tralee and spend the night and catch a train to Dublin the following day I calculated we could make it to Tralee in time to catch the afternoon train. This would save a day of travel that we could use later in the week to spend more time riding in Northern Ireland.

The day started with an adverse development. Dave realized when he was wrapping up the bike chargers that my bicycle battery had not charged. The new adapter we had purchased in Kenmare didn’t fit properly into the socket. He discovered this at about 7 am in the morning and we had planned to leave between 8:30 and 9. We had no choice as to when we had to leave, due to the need to catch the train, so he decided to charge the battery as much as time allowed and hope it would be enough. We had a big climb at the very beginning, but after reaching the top of Conor Pass at 7.5 km, the rest of the day was either flat or a descent. I thought we would be okay. After so many tours on my bike, I had a good idea of its (and my) capabilities.

The good news was the weather report had improved for the morning ride. Last night’s forecast for the morning had been for rain so we had braced ourselves to do the climb in the rain. Instead, the day looked somewhat bright and that made us happy as we said good-bye to Mona and pushed off exactly at 9 am.

Mona had been concerned about us climbing Conor Pass (she said the traffic is terrible) but on an early Sunday morning traffic was sparse. There were a number of cyclists doing what is obviously a well-known climb. Halfway up the climb, my bike battery indicator quickly dropped two bars so I knew I didn’t have a full battery, but I still thought I would be okay.

Hmm. Thos low hanging clouds ahead look worrisome.

It was a fast flat ride after a fun descent but the last 12 km was on a very busy road with 100 km/p/h speeds. That wasn’t too fun but I have adjusted to it fairly well. We reached the outskirts of Tralee and a bike trail that we followed into town. We arrived in time to have brunch at Brio, a restaurant near the train station.

The road narrowed, was steep and a bit slippery.

Tralee is a small station, with only two tracks. It is actually called Tralee Casement, named after an Irish rebel, Sir Roger Casement, who fought for Irish Independence and was hanged by the Brits in 1916. His primary crime was to escape to Germany during World War 1 to round up an army of Irish prisoners of war to start a rebellion against Britain. After he was convicted by British authorities but before he was executed, diaries were circulated suggesting he was gay, and that damaged efforts being made to grant him clemency. Whether in fact he was gay is open to historical debate today but it has added to recent efforts to elevate his historical profile both as a hero among advocates for Irish independence and the LGBTQ community.

Twenty minutes before our scheduled departure the station attendant let us through the gate and we discovered that the first train car had only two bicycle slots. It appeared that there were only two slots on the entire train. Dave managed to load the bikes with the help of another guy who was seated nearby but our assigned seats were five cars away. It was quiet in Tralee when we boarded but the train filled up when passengers loaded later in Killarney. It was a pleasant ride and we were the last to unload at Dublin Heuston station, since getting organized with the bikes takes a few minutes. It was more awkward because our panniers (and ourselves) were five cars away from the bikes.

We had a 6km ride to our small hotel, Ariel House, in the Lansdowne neighborhood in Dublin. Dublin has installed bike lanes through many arteries in its center so we had a bike lane for much of the way, although the lanes often went in and out and were shared with buses. The traffic was pretty chaotic and it was only a Sunday night. Last year there was a scathing article published about Dublin’s failure to accommodate cyclists, but it seemed a lot better than anything we have in America - although not as good as continental Europe.

I had organized the route to our hotel to go by the statue of Jim Larkin; Larkin was a labor organizer in the early 1900s and helped organize the Dublin 1913 worker’s strike, the first major labor action in Ireland. It was on our mind because Dave and I recently listened to a famous Irish novel (published in 1969) by James Plunkett, called Strumpet City, which was a fictionalized account of that period through the eyes of workers, the gentry and Catholic priests. It was a pretty depressing novel because of the poverty and powerlessness of the average worker and the lack of empathy that much of society and the church displayed towards regular people. We got hooked on the book even though it was long and depressing, and obviously the impact of it lingered, since I’m writing this now! The reality is that most Irish history is pretty depressing. Anyway, after taking a picture of Jim Larkin with a seagull on his head we made our way to the Lansdowne area.

Jim Larkin beseeching the workers to unite while the seagull shows his disdain for the human condition.

On the way we stopped and Dave ran in and booked a table at a nearby Italian Restaurant for later that evening. Our hotel Ariel House ended up working well for us. I had a pretty hard time finding accommodations in Dublin. My notes reflect I went through five different hotels before I could finally find one that would take our bikes. It astonished me because in Europe we never have any trouble at all, and indeed, I generally don’t even let hotels know we have bikes. They just always accommodate them when we arrive. But Ireland and the British Isles have been different. They don’t seem to know how to get to “yes” when it comes to bike storage. I was extremely frustrated when I researched and starting booking accommodations and was astonished at how many hotels just said they couldn’t take bikes, without even sorting through what was really involved. We had planned to spend longer in the non-Schengen countries but decided not to after experiencing this odd hostility towards cycle tourers. Dublin was one of the more frustrating experiences in booking and we were glad to find Ariel House, a very nice b and b hotel where we were able to park our bikes in an interior courtyard. Our room was small but very nice. What can I say: tea kettle, tub, an honor bar for Dave’s evening whiskey. There was no AC but it was cool enough in Dublin that an open window did the trick, although we pulled out our portable fans for the night.

Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 1,574 km (977 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	0