Northern Commuter
Rail · diesel commuter · 12 stations · Drogheda (MacBride) – Dublin Pearse
About the Northern Commuter
The Northern Commuter is an Iarnód Éireann commuter line: diesel trains on the national railway, not a metro and not a tram. It is one of the seven routes on the operator’s own Dublin City and Commuter Zone map.
Its full name is Northern Commuter line.
The Northern Commuter is Iarnród Éireann’s commuter service up the coast from Dublin into north County Dublin and on to Drogheda (MacBride) in County Louth — 12 stations, ending in the city at Dublin Pearse. Unlike the DART, it is worked by diesel trains: the overhead wires stop at Malahide, and everything north of there runs without them. Between Malahide and the city the two services share the same tracks and the same platforms, so the inner stations get both and a platform at Malahide can show an electric DART and a diesel commuter train one after the other. The whole run from Drogheda to Dublin Pearse is scheduled at 59 minutes.
Stations on the Northern Commuter
12 stations in running order, 7 of them an interchange.
Drogheda (MacBride) to Dublin Pearse
Main route, 12 stations
A ring on the dot marks a station where you can change line, either on the spot or by a short walk to a separate station. The small name under each one is its official Irish name.
Timetable and frequency
| Day | First – last | Trains a day | Timetable date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon–Thu | 05:50 – 00:36 | 92 | 2026-11-18 |
| Friday | 05:50 – 00:36 | 92 | 2026-11-20 |
| Saturday | 05:50 – 00:33 | 73 | 2026-11-21 |
| Sunday | 07:40 – 00:30 | 46 | 2026-11-22 |
| Bank holiday | 05:50 – 00:30 | 60 | 2026-10-26 |
| Whole route | Scheduled time |
|---|---|
| Drogheda – Dublin Pearse | 59 min |
First and last departure anywhere on the line, from the NTA’s published timetable for a representative week. Nothing on this line runs through the night.
How often trains run
| Time of day | Departures | Typical gap | Longest gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 07:00 | 2 | every 60 min | 60 min |
| Morning peak 07:00–10:00 | 9 | every 17 min | 39 min |
| Midday 10:00–16:00 | 18 | every 20 min | 27 min |
| Evening peak 16:00–19:00 | 9 | every 19 min | 57 min |
| Evening 19:00–22:00 | 7 | every 42 min | 66 min |
| After 22:00 | 1 | — | — |
Departures in one direction at Dublin Connolly, the busiest stop on the line, on a Monday to Thursday. Other stops are quieter; the branches are served by part of the service only.
Things to know before you travel
- Iarnrod Eireann maps the line as Drogheda – Dublin Pearse. Its own GTFS also has Northern services running through onto the DART coastal line as far as Bray, and north of Drogheda to Dundalk and Belfast; those stations are outside this site.
Where you can change
In Dublin a change between tram and train is a walk along the street: the Luas stop and the railway station are different places with different names.
| Stop | Other lines here | On foot to |
|---|---|---|
| Malahide | DART | — |
| Portmarnock | DART | — |
| Clongriffin | DART | — |
| Howth Junction and Donaghmede | DART | — |
| Dublin Connolly | DART South Eastern South Western Western | Connolly (2 min walk); Busáras (4 min walk) |
| Tara Street | DART South Eastern South Western | Abbey Street (4 min walk); Marlborough (5 min walk); Trinity (6 min walk) |
| Dublin Pearse | DART South Eastern South Western | Dawson (7 min walk); St. Stephen's Green (11 min walk) |
History
This line has no single opening date, because it is a modern timetable laid over a very old railway. Its trains run on the Dublin to Belfast main line, a 112-mile route that is the only railway crossing the Irish border and the heaviest-used on the island, carrying InterCity, regional, commuter and freight traffic over the same metals. The towns the commuter service calls at — Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush and Lusk among them — were put on the railway map in the 1840s, long before anyone thought of a Dublin commuter zone.
What has changed is the pattern of service rather than the infrastructure. Northern Commuter trains once ran across the border into Northern Ireland; that ended with the timetable change of September 2024, when the cross-border Enterprise went hourly and took over the through journeys. A halt serving a holiday camp north of the county boundary went out of use when the camp closed. The constraint on the future is physical: the bridge at Drogheda carries only a single track, which in the long run limits how often trains can be run to the town.
The service
The published timetable gives 92 trips on a Monday to Thursday, the first at 05:50 and the last at 00:36. Saturday has 73, running from 05:50 to 00:33, and Sunday 46, from 07:40 to 00:30; the October bank holiday is worked with 60. Frequencies are nothing like the DART’s: at Dublin Connolly the typical weekday gap is around twenty minutes in the middle of the day and much longer in the evening. Iarnród Éireann’s own route map ends the line at Dublin Pearse, although its timetable data also shows Northern services running on round the bay as far as Bray (Daly), and north beyond Drogheda to places outside the Dublin zone.
The trams and trains
The service is worked by 29000 Class and 22000 Class diesel railcars. They share the route with the Dublin to Belfast Enterprise, which runs through most of these stations without stopping, and with the DART as far as Malahide. Because the wires end there, a Northern Commuter train cannot simply be swapped for an electric one: extending the DART north of Malahide needs the line electrified first, which is a separate project and is not in service.
Frequently asked questions
Because the line is only electrified as far as Malahide. North of there the railway has no overhead wires, so the service is run by diesel railcars instead. South of Malahide the two share tracks and platforms, which is why the inner stations see both kinds of train.
Not now. Northern Commuter services ran into Northern Ireland until the timetable change of September 2024, when the cross-border Enterprise was increased to hourly and took the through journeys. This site covers the line only as far as Drogheda, the northern edge of the Dublin commuter zone.
The bridge at Drogheda is single track. Everything to and from the station squeezes through that one line, which is the main physical obstacle to running a higher-frequency service to the town in the long term.