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An Irish weekend with Ryanair and Aer Lingus

Less than a fortnight after my successful trip to Sweden and Finland, I was off again, this time to the Emerald Isle, Éire. I’ve long had a fascination with Ireland and it’s culture, and making a visit while taking an excellent class on the island’s politics (shout out Neil!), felt like the perfect opportunity.

Birmingham Airport

As Ireland is one of the most expensive countries in Europe to visit, I quickly established it would be another brief trip, so I narrowed my itinerary down to Doire, Béal Feirste, and Baile Átha Cliath. Having found $30 flights from Birmingham to Derry, I started my trip with a few days staying with family in the Midlands, allowing me to splash out on an Aer Lingus flight home to Heathrow.

Flight Details
AirlineRyanair
Aircraft TypeBoeing 737-800
RegistrationEI-DCJ
RouteBirmingham to Derry Eglinton
Flight NumberRK9739
Date10/04/2024

My trip began with a 5 am start to make the West Midlands Trains service to Birmingham New Street, where I changed on to an Avanti West Coast Pendolino for the last 15 minutes to the airport. To my disappointment, Ryanair doesn’t issue physical boarding passes at all, forcing you to print them out at home or download their app. With time to spare after checking in online, I headed out to the ‘Aircraft Viewing Area’, a considerable walk from the terminal through the airport’s long stay carpark. While not the greatest view in the world, I still got some acceptable shots in the freezing cold before heading back to the terminal, past the Jet2 apron.

Birmingham Airport was in the midst of major construction works during my visit, associated with the installation of new security screening facilities, and to describe the situation as chaotic would be an understatement. A severe lack of signage, loud construction noise and endless temporary corridors gave the place a rather claustrophobic feel (the walk from security to the gate area took four minutes through poorly lit windowless temporary corridors).

Heading straight to my gate, I discovered the joys of Birmingham’s low-cost pier, a poorly lit shed structure that appeared to totally lack any form of heating! While the shortage of seating also bugged me a bit and the lack of a PA system complicated things somewhat, boarding was a fairly orderly affair once my ride, EI-DCJ, made a delayed arrival from Venice Marco Polo.

Ryanair Boeing 737-800 EI-DCJ at Birmingham

Remarkably, out of the Ryanair Group’s 600 plus aircraft, I had ended up on their oldest 737-800, (and third oldest aircraft overall) with Charlie Juliett coming in at just under twenty years old at the time of my flight. Although Ryanair’s 737s are fitted with built-in airstairs at the front left doors, I was boarding through the rear, having selected seat 25A at booking.

Onboard and out of the rain, I found my seat to be a little dirty, and about as minimalist as they come, with no recline or seat pocket, and very limited legroom, although not too uncomfortable overall. The abundance of yellow in the cabin and the combination of seatback safety instructions and advertisements on the overhead bins left the cabin feeling quite visually busy. The rain intensified a bit as we taxied out for departure, and there was a fair bit of turbulence climbing through the clouds after take-off. Looking fresh out of high school, the gum-chewing cabin crew came through the cabin as the seatbelt sign was switched off, selling scratch cards, before retreating to the jumpseats for the remainder of the fifty-minute flight across the Irish Sea.

Approaching City of Derry Airport from the east, we passed over the largely abandoned RAF Ballykelly aerodrome shortly before touchdown on Eglinton’s runway 26. Itself a former RAF base, Derry Airport sees flights to a number of destinations in England and Scotland, mostly operated by Loganair and Easyjet, with an Embraer ERJ-145 of the former, G-SAJI already parked outside the terminal as we taxied in.

Foyle Street Bus Station

Being a small regional airport, I was back landside less than a minute after deboarding and walked out a few hundred meters to the Translink bus stop on the A2, where after a twenty-minute wait, an Ulsterbus Wright StreetDeck pulled up, taking me down to the city’s Foyle Street Bus Station. My hotel for the night was the Holiday Inn Express, a short walk from the bus station. I spent my afternoon wandering around the Bogside in light rain, checking out the iconic Free Derry Corner, and some of the murals that the city is so well-known for.

Checking out early the next morning, I spent some time following Derry’s famous city walls, before visiting the Museum of Free Derry in the Bogside. Exploring the story of the Troubles, the Civil Rights Movement, and Bloody Sunday, it is hands-down the best small museum I’ve ever visited. With a footprint barely larger than a terraced house, I spent over an hour taking in the moving displays and films before walking back across the Foyle to Derry’s recently rebuilt railway station in the Waterside.

Operated by one of NIR’s slightly newer 6-car 4000 class DMUs, my train to Belfast Great Victoria Street Station (since closed and replaced by Grand Central Station) took just over two hours through the picturesque Irish countryside. Having arrived just prior to 5 pm, I walked through the city centre to my hotel for the next two nights, the tired and run-down Etap (now an Ibis Budget) on Dublin Road.

Belfast Great Victoria Street Station

My only full day in Belfast started with a sausage and egg soda farl from the Centra near my hotel, before spending a few hours at the Ulster Museum with a local friend. I then picked up a two-day Belfast Visitor Pass from the Visit Belfast Welcome Centre and took the Glider bus out to Stormont Estate, the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly. After passing through the security booth to the side of the parliament building, I headed inside for a free tour I had booked a few weeks prior.

The tour of Stormont took around an hour, and was one of the better free activities I’ve come across while travelling, though as a politics student, I may be a little biased! I found Belfast to be surprisingly tourist-friendly and easy to navigate, and I could have easily spent many more days there.

My second last morning on the island of Ireland began with a 6 am alarm and a walk to Lanyon Place station, where I caught the 8 am cross-border Enterprise service to Dublin Connolly. With an Iarnród Éireann 201 Class locomotive at the Belfast end, the train was made up of a single Mark 3 generator van behind the locomotive and 7 passenger carriages, built by De Dietrich, to a design reminiscent of Eurostar e300 coaches. Taking just over two hours to Dublin, my carriage filled up considerably more after crossing the border into the Republic, arriving into Connolly station nearly full at 10:10 am.

I picked up a TFI Leap visitor card from a newsagents in Connolly station before getting the Luas red line out to The Point, a short walk to my hotel, the confusingly named Premier Inn Dublin City Centre (North Docklands). Keen to take full advantage of my limited time in the Irish capital, I immediately headed out to visit the city’s infamous GPO, the Archaeology and Natural History branches of the National Museum of Ireland, and had a wander around Dublin Castle, before taking the DART out to Howth in the evening. Located on the peninsula of Howth Head, the village looks out to the Irish Sea, and after exploring some of the coastline, I picked up some fish and chips for dinner before getting the bus back into Dublin proper.

A walk around Trinity College began my last day in Ireland, before a visit to the Decorative Arts and History branch of the National Museum of Ireland, which included an excellent exhibit about the Easter Rising. I then quickly discovered the chaotic state of Dublin’s airport coach system when, despite paying eight euros for a ticket, I watched five buses pass by over 45 minutes, all too full to stop. Thankfully I had headed off early in the hope of getting some planespotting in, so arrived at Dublin’s gorgeous Terminal 2 with time to spare.

Flight Details
AirlineAer Lingus
Aircraft TypeAirbus A320-200
RegistrationEI-GAL
RouteDublin to London Heathrow
Flight NumberEI180
Date14/04/2024

After picking up my flimsy receipt paper boarding pass, I made my way through the glacial security line, to the most thorough airport security I’ve ever encountered in Europe. Although the staff were very good-natured and chatty, it was a bit of a hassle having to take off my shoes, belt AND my hoodie, as well as emptying my backpack of all electronics and liquids.

Dublin Airport

Boarding was delayed by ten minutes, but I was pleased to discover rear stair boarding was again an option, allowing excellent views of my ride back to Heathrow, 15-year-old Airbus A320-200 EI-GAL, still wearing Aer Lingus’ previous livery. With nearly every seat filled, we pushed back on time, and after a slightly bumpy take-off, were cruising south-east across the Irish Sea as the sun set.

The flight was entirely unremarkable, although our descent into Heathrow shortly after sunset provided some amazing views of London’s city centre and the Thames. Thanks to the Common Travel Area between the Republic of Ireland and the UK, my flight was effectively a domestic one, so arrival back into the UK was very simple, and I was soon back on a National Express coach down to Brighton.

London from above

Visiting Éire was one of the highlights of my time living in the UK, and is a trip I will never forget. While the historic sectarian divisions still feel very present in Northern Ireland, I found the people of both the north and the Republic to be exceedingly warm and friendly, and I can’t wait to return to see more of the island.

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