Irish Rail - Iarnród Éireann Avis 6

Never have I ever taken a train in Ireland that arrived anywhere close to the ETA. This is not lack of compromise with punctuality, this is a full blown surrealist artwork of a transport company.

Do not take Irish Rail unless you're willing to spend your whole day there.

Great! From huston to kildare in only 20min😍😍

So, ws going to limerick for medical appointment on 09.25 train, tried to book tickets online night before but kept getting different booking fees for free travel as site seemed to keep dropping free travel.
So we arrived at station at 09.05 to find a long queue outside ticket counter, as i have a travel pass i use the counter but it was roped off and no movement of the counter.
After 15 minutes i went to the kiosk and was told that yes thats the queue, so i asked the station manager when the queue would be served only to be told the train was booked out online, i asked him where on Irish Rail is this specified or displayed and got a long explanation about capacity. I then asked if it would be announced over the tannoy system only to be told everyone did not need to know??? I asked him when he intended to tell the people in the queue and he told me he had???? I was in queue for 15 minutes and saw him stop at a few people but not at us. So in a nutshell. You have to book online and pay for the privilege or you queue all day
He informed me that trains up to 14.30 were booked out and that the queue was the " Standby"
Im travelling to limerick fron Cork...not singapore to london
So no notifications, no announcements just book online and then i met people that bought " flexible" tickets that were told the train was booked out? Wtaf?
If it could not get worse i asked again if they would announce it or put it on the board...NO
so i went to the queue and told them....and told them about no seats until 2.30??? This guy expected people to queue until then for the privilege of travelling with irish rail
My own opinion, not enough trains or carriages, a stealth buy online and pay extra policy coupled with an arrogance that only a much needed transport network would encourage
Money over customers

The seat reservation system does not function properly and sometimes does not function at all. I reserved two seats two weeks before travel only to discover system was off and sit anywhere policy was in place. Lots of arguments on train because of this. Any time system works it’s not on until train has departed. Needs to be either fixed or stopped completely

Racist staff- witness to a rather upsetting incident on the train at Dundalk station, absolutely disgraceful

We use Irish Rail InterCity and usually stump up for the first class. Day trip to Cork from Dublin yesterday and as usual the service is really efficient and of note is the constant friendliness of all staff - in train and in stations.