On to Dublin

Aidan: You ever been to Ireland, Alan?
Alan: No, no. I’d love to go.
Aidan: It amazes me when people say that and it’s only forty-nine quid on a plane.
Alan: Yeah, I think that’s what puts me off. Well, that’s the smalltalk, now let’s get down to business. Now, your programme – [bad Irish accent] What’s de big oidea?

I’m Alan Partridge (1997)

Episode 5 – To Kill A Mocking Alan

Ireland was uncharted territory for me as it was, I was very surprised to learn, for a lot of people I knew. As a result, this little exchange went through my head every time and pretty much brought a smirk to my face every time.

Inflation may have changed the prices in the last 18 years but the sense of it is still correct – the costs of visiting Ireland are far from prohibitive. And planes are transport I try to avoid when I can and so I took the train. And boat.

The ever brilliant seat61 explains that there are two ways to take the train to Dublin and I chose the rail and sail option via Holyhead which meant a Sunday morning, 8am, start at Euston for the train. It takes a while but it should not be as frustrating as flying which involves, in my case, a long trip to the airport followed by a huge wait and faff to board the plane. The packing into a pressurised container with stressed people is also not huge fun, and this is then (though I do love the views at approach and landing) to be followed by customs and whatever weird transport is needed to get to the city centre on the other side. That extra time is not enjoyable, and usually not cheap either (unless LHR or LCY) so I avoid it where possible. There is also a less restrictive luggage policy – no worries about 100ml of liquids and getting things to fit into a particular bag^[1].

Train travel is so pleasant – or it can be but so often isn't in the UK nowadays. And very rarely on the weekends is it running as it should with a decent service. Virgin Trains rarely provide a decent service in my experience and so I went to Euston expecting annoyance and that is what I got^[2]. There was a huge queue to get onto the train from 15 minutes or so before. Tickets were being checked very slowly and the time for the train was approaching – there was a football match between Liverpool and Manchester United on the day and there were many fans using the train to go up to Liverpool… as they do most weekends. I also needed to change train to get to Holyhead as there seems not be a direct service on Sundays so after a change at Crewe, I took another train which was calm, peaceful and came with wonderful scenery attached to it on the way to Holyhead.

The train station at Holyhead is directly connected to the ferry port and so it is very easy to check in and board as a foot passenger from the train. On board, there is lots of space and a fair few things to do too – but first I wanted to check if they were showing the football. Judging by the noise and congregation, they were showing it in the bar so I settled down to watch for a less than happy experience^[3]. Once the game was over, I had a look around the open parts of the ferry and it was pretty spacious – a nice space in which to travel. I had about an hour and a half after the game finished so I found a quiet area outside the cinema to play some games. Being able to stretch out is nice and there were places to do so without having to buy food and drink. The only issue on this particular crossing were the numbers of kids (by which I mean under the age of 18) wandering about and that tension of people of that age being “hard” and aggressive and listening to pretty rubbish music on their phones. But there was still plenty of space to escape – the match probably made me more annoyed than I would otherwise have been.

Once we arrived at Dublin ferry port, it was a fairly quick disembarkation to the outside world, quicker still without passport control, whereupon I got a bus to the city centre. The bus was almost empty as there seems to be few foot passengers in total and even many of those probably make their own way from the port – so I went upstairs with my bag to see what I could see. It takes about twenty minutes into town and the bus is timetabled with the ferry so it is hard to miss unless you really mess it up. The overall trip is pretty stress-free and would be even more so if I had known the details. I had been travelling from 8am to about 6pm but when so much of it is uneventfully sitting, it is quite easy to fill that time.

Once I was in Dublin that night, I checked in to my Bed and Breakfast which was a short walk from the city centre, had dinner and then had a saunter to the Liffey. I noticed quite a lot of young Europeans that seemed to have made themselves feel at home staffing the cafes and bars – a European city.

^{1. This trip was my first with a travelling combination of a new compact camera and new tablet – replacing a netbook and SLR – which should make packing a lot easier anyway.↩}

^{2. This is not an unexpected rush and in any sensibly run world, there would be scope to have more services for busier days – I think this is not possible in the wonderfully fragmented world of post-privatisation British trains As the time for departure arrived, I had got onto the train but not to my seat as the aisles were full of people – like a commuter service at rush hour. I made my way to my reserved seat and asked someone to move. They did so without fuss but they then had to stand all the way for two and a half hours. It was cramped and uncomfortable with rival fans travelling together (without trouble, it must be said) but it really is appallingly run. The Pendolino which VT use regularly is quite an uncomfortable train anyway – how they have managed to advertise it as a “better” train is the majesty of glossy PR trumping what people actually feel. It works too – there was a campaign to keep gifting Virgin Trains loads of public money to run trains on the West Coast Main Line (the cash cow of the national rail network) in spite of the positives of the service – the best maintained track in the country – being nothing to do with Virgin. And now they have been gifted the East Coast Main Line service too – a service which was so unprofitable that the previous operating company, NXEC, walked away from it as they could not make money from it. The “dead hand of the state” then had to take over as the operator of last resort and managed to then be the best run and operated line in the country – which reflected badly on other providers and the overall policy of privatisation. So what does a government do when moaning about the public service deficit and owning a service that lowers that deficit? It re-tenders to the lively hands of enterprise.↩}

^{3. The match was Liverpool vs Manchester United – a tense game at the best of times but the score was a hammering. And Steven Gerrard also got very stupidly sent off after a few seconds on the pitch to kill any hopes of a comeback. As a game, it was depressing but I found the act of watching football with so many other people arguably more depressing. Liverpool and Manchester United are big teams and they have big followings in Ireland too –which mainly derive from the many Irish in both cities (Liverpool and Manchester). As a result, there were many fans of all ages and they basically all made me cringe watching the game. I used to watch a lot of football in pubs and it was not too bad with friends but I hated watching when there were more people – not because of the numbers but because you suddenly had to hear the thought processes of football fans. It is even worse at World Cup time as you then also have to hear the thoughts (there is no process….) of non-fans watching the game. Watching this game reminded me – that thought was most always just “get it in there” or “get stuck in”. I guess we just like different aspects of the game…↩}