There is no doubt that Ireland is a nation rich in culture and history. However, its rail infrastructure, particularly its train stations, lags embarrassingly behind global standards. Nowhere is this contrast starker than when comparing Dublin's Connolly and Heuston stations to major transport hubs in cities like London, Toronto, Hamburg, and Madrid just to name a few. These international cities have embraced the 21st century of transit, while Ireland clings to a model of railway infrastructure that feels dated, underutilized, and quite underwhelming. Let’s dive into what Ireland’s train stations are missing out on and the opportunities to boost them.

Dublin

Let’s start with the numbers. Dublin’s busiest stations, Connolly and Heuston, serve around 8 to 9 million passengers annually, respectively. That’s roughly 25,000–30,000 passengers a day. While these figures might sound respectable in isolation, they pale in comparison to their international counterparts.

Connolly Station

Heuston Station

London

Take London’s King’s Cross and St Pancras stations. St Pancras alone sees over 34 million passengers annually. Adjacent King’s Cross handles over 30 million, and both are architectural marvels: glass-roofed concourses, seamless Eurostar connections, shopping, and cultural exhibitions. Transport hubs here are designed not only for efficiency but also as civic landmarks. Already we can see the difference in not just size but in the number of shops and retail within the station compared to Dublin’s train stations, which means Irish Rail isn’t making as much as King’s Cross money in this area.

King's Cross Station (Much higher and nicer ceilings than Dublin's stations and more than twice as busy as Heuston and Connolly)

Toronto’s Union Station

Toronto’s Union Station is Canada’s busiest transportation facility with over 300,000 daily passengers. It’s not just a train station, it’s a central artery of the city’s life, linking regional rail (GO Transit), the Toronto subway, VIA Rail intercity trains, and the UP (Union Pearson) Airport Express. Renovations in recent years have added grand concourses, sleek digital wayfinding, high-end retail, and seamless intermodal connections. In fact, there’s a joke in Toronto that Union station is always under construction. The same can’t be said for Heuston and Connolly on the other hand. Heuston was last expanded in 2003 to add four new platforms, and Connolly couldn’t be expanded anymore so Docklands station was built instead to handle the extra travel and platform demand. While these upgrades boosted capacity, they were incremental and reactive; driven by bottlenecks rather than a forward-looking design. This is seen by the rail and passenger capacity constraints the stations face today.

Toronto's Union Station (Vastly bigger and with 10 times as much passenger and rail capacity than Connolly and Heuston)

Hamburg Central Station

Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (central station) manages over 500,000 passengers per day. That’s more than 15 times Connolly’s traffic, every single day. The station’s design accommodates local S-Bahn trains, long-distance Deutsche Bahn services, and practically miles of retail zones that make it a destination in itself. Despite the high volume, it remains efficient, orderly, and passenger friendly. For these reasons this station truly eats both Heuston and Connolly stations combined for breakfast.

Hamburg Central Station

Ireland’s Missed Opportunity

Ireland’s reliance on cars, underinvestment in national rail infrastructure, and failure to modernize its train stations cost the country economically, environmentally, and socially every day. The current absence of the Metro Dublin project, the lack of 24-hour services, and the cramped, dated feel of Heuston and Connolly, all reflect a systemic undervaluing of rail as a public good.

In a global moment where cities are racing to decarbonize, reduce congestion, and improve urban liveability, Ireland is stumbling. Countries with far larger and more complex populations manage to deliver stunning, high-volume, and elegant railway infrastructure, why can’t we?

Modernizing Irish train stations and building a proper metro network in Dublin isn’t just about keeping up, it’s about future-proofing the country. Ireland has the potential, the wealth, and the environmental need to elevate its transport systems. The first step? Acknowledge that we’re not just behind, we’re missing out. The next? Approve the construction of the Metro Dublin project.

How Metro Dublin Will Boost Irish Rail Stations

Metro Dublin aims not just to serve new areas but to dramatically enhance connectivity between existing Irish Rail stations. Under the proposed alignments, the metro would link Heuston, Glasnevin, Croke Park, Spencer Dock (replacing the current Docklands terminus), and Pearse Station—creating a unified, high-frequency transit backbone for the entire city. This would finally allow Dublin’s fragmented rail infrastructure to function like an integrated network, reducing transfer times, relieving pressure on city centre roads, and elevating the role of Irish Rail stations from isolated hubs to fully connected pillars of urban mobility. If realized, Metro Dublin could be the transformative investment that Ireland’s rail system has long needed.

Metro Dublin 2032 Map

Ireland stands at a crossroads. While cities across Europe and North America have reimagined their train stations as gateways to modern urban life; efficient, beautiful, and interconnected; Ireland’s rail hubs remain stuck in the past. Connolly and Heuston may serve their purpose, but they do little to inspire, integrate, or scale with a growing city’s needs. The vision offered by Metro Dublin, combined with lessons from cities like London, Madrid, Hamburg, and Toronto, shows that better is not only possible, it’s overdue. Ireland doesn’t just need more trains; it needs to believe that its public transport and train stations can be world-class, and start building accordingly.