The sole public transit link between Drogheda and the Newgrange site is bus route 163, operated by Bus Éireann. Route 163 runs from Drogheda Bus Station to Newgrange and stops at the Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre along the way. The routing on the return sector is largely iidentical, except it does not stop at the Battle of the Boyne centre and goes straight back to Drogheda from Newgrange.
Note: The bus will drop you off at the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre, which is the only way to access the Newgrange site no matter how you choose to get there.
As my 100x service from Dublin dropped me at Drogheda Bus Station I didn’t have to worry about the connection times. The 15 minutes window was more than enough to buy a ticket and to stretch my legs.
For our dedicated info page on getting to Newgrange via public transport, click here.
First posted 12 July 2017. Updated 12 March 2023. Note: Bus Éireann route 163 has been replaced by Local Link Route 188. The information on route 163 in this post is no longer accurate.
Buying my ticket
I bought my ticket from the ticket window at Drogheda Bus Station. The Adult Day Return Ticket cost me €7.80. Depending on your needs, you can get a Single or a Return ticket, with prices differing depending on if you’re an Adult, Child, or Student.
When buying your ticket from the counter, just tell staff that you want to get to Newgrange. There isn’t any ticket information for this route on the Bus Éireann website so your best bet is still to go up to the ticket window and ask if you have any enquiries.
Departure from Drogheda Bus Station
Close to the scheduled departure time of 11:15 am, I noticed a sole waiting passenger being approached by staff and led to a bus parked at the parking slots meant for inactive buses. Up until this point there had been no announcement whatsoever on Bus Éireann route 163, and neither was there a bus with displaying the 163 route number.
I reasoned that since it was the only departure on that time slot, and having read online that the load on the bus is usually light, the bus she was being led to must be operating route 163. I was right, and the bus driver confirmed as much. This was a bit of a minor snag in the otherwise smooth journey, and obviously some announcement is needed. The 11:15am service is the first and penultimate service to Newgrange, so if you missed it your next bus would be at 2:45pm instead.
As expected, the load was very light. There were only 5 other passengers onboard this intercity bus, so clearly it wasn’t a very popular way of getting to Newgrange. Another amusing detail was that all of us were headed to Newgrange, which made the bus’s scheduled detour to the Battle of the Boyne centre redundant as no one actually boarded as well – The bus simply drove around the car park and back out onto the main road.
Arrival at Brú na Bóinne visitor centre
The bus kept to its schedule and arrived at the Brú na Bóinne centre at 11:40 am. The ride took only 25 minutes and was quite comfortable, though I suppose a regular city bus could have done the trick, since the light load clearly didn’t warrant a full sized intercity bus.
All buses (tour buses included) stop at the Bus-Car park area of the visitor centre, so simply follow the signs down the pegola walkway to the entrance of the visitor centre itself, via a 5 minute walk.
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