Shannon to Dublin - please help with Public Transportation
 

Our current travel plans for August include flying into Shannon and renting a car there to tour the southwest and west. Then we want to use public transportation from the Shannon airport to Dublin where we will join a guided tour. Do you know of a good way to get from Shannon to Dublin via public transportation? I guess another option would be to drive to Dublin and turn in the car there, but I've not yet looked into dropping off the car at a different location - maybe that would be OK with a major rental company like AVIS?? Thanks for any help/advice you can provide. Jim

There is a bus that runs from Shannon to Dublin. You would probably need to change in Limerick, and it takes hours and hours. Try www.buseireann.ie for details. <BR><BR>Did you consider flying up? The prices for Aer Lingus flights from Shannon to Dublin aren't *huge* (although they aren't cheap). Otherwise, it might just be easier to drive up. I'm sure one of the rental companies wouldn't have a huge difficulty with you dropping the car off in Dublin.

It appears you can go by train from Limerick to Dublin (Heuston station).<BR><BR>You'd have to get from Shannon Airport to the Limerick station. Or, if it's just a matter of having to drop the car somewhere, you may want to see if your company has a dropoff in one of the other cities with a rail line. In the southwest/west, Galway, Ennis, Cork, Killarney, Tralee, etc are rail access points.<BR><BR>The Irish Rail site is showing Limerick to Dublin as 2hr 52 minutes with one change.<BR><BR>Main rail site:<BR>http://www.irishrail.ie<BR><BR>Rail line map:<BR>http://www.irishrail.ie/your_journey/intercity_map.asp

Oops, meant to add that their fare schedule looks like it's 36.50EU per person for the Limerick-Dublin run.

I've found that you can usually drop a rental car off in another location without a fee in Ireland. Of course, I haven't done that for about 4 years, so maybe policies have changed.<BR><BR>If you do this, DO NOT drop the car off in the city centre. Driving in Dublin is awful, and was made even worse recently by a random change in traffic patterns.

Ann is right, most rental agencies don't have a drop off charge for their major locations in the Republic. Certainly Shannon and Dublin are interchangeable.<BR><BR>Bill

Thank you very much to violagirl, Clifton, Ann41 and wojazz3 for the great ideas. I especially like the information on being able to drop off the car at the Dublin airport (not in the city) or at a place along the way that also has a train station - I wouldn't have thought of that, I'm sure. Thanks again for your thoughful responses. Jim