AS ALWAYS, WITH the sun coming out at the weekend, so did the crowds.
In Dublin, tens of thousands flocked to the coastal town of Howth in the north-east of the county. The Howth Maritime and Seafood Festival kicked off on Friday at noon and continued through to Sunday evening.
Burrow Beach in Sutton is less than a kilometre west of Howth village and is frequently busy with tourists and Dubliners alike when the weather brightens up. Parking is scarce in Howth with a single road in and out, so the area is mostly reached by use of the Dart.
Last weekend was no different: a spokesman for Irish Rail told The Journal that a conservative estimate of those who travelled to Howth on the Dart over the weekend is 35,000.
There was “very heavy demand” for the festival in Howth and for Burrow Beach on Sunday, he said.
The spokesman further said there was an “extensive operation” across the weekend for Howth, with a particular focus on additional services for Sunday.
Among measures was the addition of nine extra full-length trains for Howth, each with the capacity for around 1,200 people. All Darts went to and from Howth rather than being split between Howth and Malahide.
Videos circulating online show hundreds waiting in long queues at the Dart station in Howth, although several users said it moved “very quickly”, despite the appearance.
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The Irish Rail spokesman said that for return services, its team worked with event organisers and gardaí on crowd management, “especially ensuring capacity was available for Darts leaving Howth for those boarding at Sutton from the beach”.
There are extra northside services planned for the upcoming bank holiday weekend. The weather is forecast to remain warm, with temperatures of up to 22 degrees predicted for the weekend.
Concerts in St Anne’s Park, situated between Raheny and Clontarf, are to begin on Friday and run across the next two weekends.
However, there will be works on the southside at the weekend, resulting in no trains between Connolly Station in the city and Greystones in Co Wicklow from Saturday to Monday.
These works are “long scheduled”, the spokesman said.
‘Ridiculous’
Speaking to The Journal, local councillor David Healy said it is “ridiculous” that Irish Rail would schedule maintenance works over summer weekends, particularly on a bank holiday.
Healy was also critical of the Dart services on Saturday, although he acknowledged Sunday was better resourced.
The Green Party councillor said he was waiting for the Dart at Howth station shortly before noon on Saturday and when it arrived it had only six carriages rather than the maximum of eight. He added that the carriages were older versions and had no air conditioning, with passengers relying on ventilation from open windows.
“It was completely packed as I got on, and somebody fainted inside the Dart,” he said. The woman received help from station officials.
Healy said another aspect of the overcrowding on the Dart and the long queues at the station is coordination between the rail and the bus. The last bank holiday, the rail line was closed for engineering.
“The result of that in Howth on the bank holiday weekend was just enormous numbers of people trying to get on the buses. There were nowhere near enough buses for them, and so lots of people were stuck waiting at bus stops with full buses passing by.”
Irish Rail have got better at putting on intercity services when there are big events scheduled, such as matches, but this does not seem to have gone as far as the Dart, he continued.
“They seem to be thinking that they would just put extra people in the stations to help organise people, whereas that’s not really the problem. It is important, and it’s good that they’ve got people in the stations, but it’s not primarily a crowd-control problem.
“The real problem is just making sure you’ve got enough capacity on the services.”
He said maximising services, including buses, is the only way to deal with the long queues and waits for those visiting Howth and other coastal areas during the good weather.
Eoin Kernan of Explore Howth told The Journal that Howth was naturally going to be inundated with visitors given the festival, and he has heard positive feedback about the public transport over the weekend.
“I think it was quite well managed,” he said, adding that he does feel work needs to be done on the Dart schedules for the busy season.
“One of the big positives we saw at the weekend was a huge number of people cycling to Howth, so we could look at that in the future as well, at improving the cycling facilities when you get to Howth: where you leave your bike and having storage facilities.”