My day-trip to Newgrange started with a 07:00 am bus from Belfast to Dublin. I initially toyed with the idea of taking the Enterprise straight to Drogheda, but the timing ended up being too shaky as I would have a very small window in which to catch the bus to Newgrange. It was also more expensive than taking the bus to Dublin, and from Dublin to Drogheda, so I gave up and decided to go with the Goldline X1 bus instead.
First posted 12 July 2017. Updated 12 March 2023.
Departure from Belfast
An early bus meant that I had to wake up early. But the problem with waking up is that I never quite want to wake up, so I ended up having to pay £4.40 for a cab to Europa instead. Yes, it is only a 20+ minute walk to Europa from my place but with only 40 minutes left I wasn’t sure if I could actually make it since I also had to collect my ticket from the counter. It wasn’t just my conscience admonishing me, as the taxi driver also said I really didn’t need a cab as I could have just walked.
The bus departed Europa on time, and I was treated to the very tight legroom onboard Goldline buses. The seats themselves are fine, but is some extra legroom really that hard to implement? It felt like Translink was running a weight loss program where they squeeze the fat out of you.
The X1 service stops at Sprucefield, Banbridge, Newry, Dublin Airport, and finally Dublin Busáras. We left Belfast with a relatively light load, but a huge number got on at Newry, carrying suitcases and all. Clearly this was the airport crowd, as the X1 is Translink’s only service from Newry to Dublin Airport.
As I only had 4 hours of sleep before that, I managed to get a quick doze. This helped with the monotony as it meant I didn’t have to stare out the window to pass the time, and before I knew it, we were already pulling into Dublin Airport. After that, it was a quick 20 minute drive to Busáras via the Dublin Port tunnel.
Arrival at Dublin Busáras
Busáras is Dublin’s central bus hub, serving major Bus Éireann and Translink services, though buses also call at other stops scattered around the city but mostly close to the river and Dublin Connolly station. Busáras itself has a distinctive brutalist architecture. The waiting hall has a high ceiling and is pleasant enough.
Busáras’s age is showing, and the toilets are probably the worst I’ve ever seen in Ireland: It was so bad that I nope-ed out of there and walked the 10 minutes to Dublin Connolly instead.
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