New Cavan to Dundalk bus service welcomed

A new bus linking Dundalk to Cavan began at the weekend, offering an enhanced service for some passengers, but Shercock, Stradone and Inishkeen are not directly served by the route.

Route 170 will provide six daily services via Carrickmacross, Kingscourt and Bailieborough. Features include a later departure from Cavan at 7:45pm and Dundalk at 7:45pm, and a new Sunday and public holiday timetable between the two towns.

However the villages Shercock and Inishkeen will no longer be connected by the new service, as they were under the former route 166, and neither will Stradone, meaning that passengers travelling on Bus Eireann will have to transfer first to neighbouring towns, effectively doubling their previous travel time.

For passengers in Stradone, they will have to attend a stop at the Lavey Inn.

The changes were preceded by the introduction of Route 171, the first of two routes in a phased roll out of new Local Link and Bus Éireann bus services in Cavan, Monaghan and Louth earlier this year.

A new Local Link bus service from Shercock to Dundalk was launched in July but meant the withdrawal of Shercock to Cavan services on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with the introduction of the new Route 170.

The provision of the new route has however been hailed. Aontú’s Sarah O’Reilly welcomed the appearance of “this big beautiful bus floating through town” last Sunday.

“The new bus services are most welcome and will go a long way to filling the huge gap in public bus services in the east of the county. I have been a long time calling for improved services in our area and I am delighted to see that Cavan and especially east Cavan is well represented in the proposals launched,” she said.

Cavan County Council held a special meeting in December 2021 arising from which they put together a submission and observations along with proposals for the entire county.

Some nine per cent of all new and improved routes feature changes for services in Cavan, and Cllr O’Reilly says: “There was huge interest during the public consultation period for the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan from the people of County Cavan. There were 53 submissions from Cavan, compared with just three submissions from Longford, six submissions from Monaghan.”

She adds: “There is no point in moaning on social media, you have to get into the process and put everything in writing. Cavan were to the fore in getting their opinions and observations on the lack of services and the desperate need in the county to the NTA.”

Cllr O’Reilly’s own was one of the 53 submissions from Cavan and she stated: “I have seen a few plans come and go, either through lack of funding or political will since I started my campaign for better public transport services in east Cavan. The new Local Link route from Shercock to Dundalk was launched in July and has really taken off. But to see the 170 bus floating through Bailieborough town on Sunday brought great joy and relief that the hard work had paid off.”

With expectations that Local Link could yet be extended further east later this year, connecting Cootehill-Shercock-Bailieborough- Virginia, Cllr O’Reilly said: “That will give us even more rural options between towns. Now that we have these new services, we must use them in order to keep them.”

Bernard Allan is a service user from Cavan who is disappointed that Stradone is not on the new 170 route.

“Serving Stradone entails a negligible addition in journey times; a mere two or three minutes extra running time (or a kilometre or so in distance terms) compared to staying on the N3,” he pointed out in a letter to the editor.

He also said that the longstanding Local Link connection between Shercock and Cavan has been “severed”.

A spokesperson for Bus Éireann confirmed that the new Local Link Route 171 will serve Shercock and Inishkeen.

“These stops are no longer served by Bus Éireann. Passengers travelling between Shercock and Cavan can transfer between Local Link Route 171 and Bus Éireann Route 170 at Carrickmacross.

Bus Eireann’s Route 170 (Dundalk to Cavan) and Local Link Route 171 (Shercock to Dundalk) will replace the Bus Éireann Route 166 (Dundalk to Cavan).”

The Local Link services are funded through the Department of Transport through the National Transport Authority as part of the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan.