Call for action as Letterkenny is now Ireland’s largest town without any rail plans

Letterkenny will be the largest town in Ireland without a plan to connect it to the rail network, following the announcement made earlier this month.

The 2022 census identified Letterkenny as one of Ireland’s fastest-growing towns, with a population of just over 22,500 people. That makes it the third largest town without any connection to the Irish rail network – behind Swords, Co Dublin (41,000) and Navan, Co Meath (34,000). 

However, Swords will see its rail restored as part of the proposed new cross-Dublin Metrolink project, which after years of delays is now moving forward with a scheduled completion date of 2035. 

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And earlier this month it was also announced that consultants have now been appointed for the project to restore rail to Navan. This will be done via a 40km northern extension of the existing line which runs from Dublin Docklands to the M3 Parkway, with rail due to reach Navan before 2035. So, Letterkenny has now become the largest town in the Irish State without any plan for the restoration of its rail services.

Restoring a rail link between Letterkenny and Derry was recommended in the All-Island Rail Strategy, which was published in July of this year. That strategy proposed linking the route with a reopened Derry-Portadown line, to give Letterkenny and north-east Donegal a direct rail route to Dublin and Belfast. 

However, the current timescale envisaged in the strategy for restoring the Derry-Portadown line is after 2040 at the earliest, and it is only planned to reopen Letterkenny-Derry after that point. 

Rail campaigners Into The West are therefore calling instead for planning to begin immediately on a proposal to restore rail between Letterkenny and Derry by 2035. And they’re calling for the new Infrastructure Fund that is being set up with the ‘Apple Windfall Tax’ money to be used to fund the proposal.

In September the EU’s Court of Justice ruled that American technology giant Apple had received illegal tax advantages from the Irish State, and ordered the company to pay €14bn in back-dated taxes to Dublin. 

That money has been ring-fenced by the government to spend solely on four types of infrastructure – water, electricity, housing and transport – with the objective being “to ensure the future development of our society”. A government report is due for release in the first quarter of 2025 to outline which projects will be awarded funding from this windfall fund.

Into The West state that restoring the 35km rail link between Letterkenny and Derry would deliver huge benefits. Letterkenny is part of the North-west City Region, along with Derry and Strabane – and the highest concentration of cross-border commuting on the island occurs between north-east Donegal and Derry city every day, with 38% of all cross-border trips happening there. 

Yet the vast majority of these take place by car because of limited bus options and the complete absence of rail. This has also resulted in Letterkenny becoming a very car-dominated town, with a level of congestion you would expect to find only in much larger places. 

A new rail link to Letterkenny – with additional halts at Manorcunningham and Newtoncunningham – would help ease traffic pressure on the town by providing people with an alternative option to driving. 

City of Derry Airport has recently added new routes to Liverpool and Edinburgh, and 40% of all passengers using the facility are travelling to or from Donegal – yet their only option to access the county is by car. 

Derry’s Altnagelvin Hospital is the designated Cancer Centre for Donegal, whilst both Derry and Letterkenny have growing universities that are undergoing continual expansion – including a number of nursing and medical places at Magee which are reserved for students based in the Republic of Ireland. 

Campaigners say there is a clear need to better connect the two main towns in the North-West City Region – for work, study, healthcare, shopping, social events and travel. Yet almost all journeys across the region are currently reliant upon private cars – creating congestion, pollution, and limiting the opportunities of those who are unable to drive or who can’t afford a car. 

“The recent announcement to extend rail to Navan is great news for Meath but bad news for Donegal,” Chair of Into The West, Steve Bradley, commented. “Because it places Letterkenny in the unenviable position of now being Ireland’s largest town without any plans for rail.  

“By 2035 Letterkenny will have a population approaching 30,000 people, and will be by-far the largest disconnected town in the Republic. This unwanted title should be ringing alarm bells for everyone across north-east Donegal. It was good that the All-Ireland Rail Strategy recommended restoring rail to Letterkenny – but not that it recommended only doing so after the NI government has got around to reopening Derry-Portadown. Stormont has consistently shown itself to be politically unstable, strategically indecisive and financially constrained – so placing Donegal’s rail future in its hands would be deeply unwise.

“The good news is that there is a better way. The Irish government has a kitty of over €14bn in tax money from Apple that it has committed to spend solely on infrastructure. So now is the time for all of Donegal – from its newly-elected TDs to its council, Chambers of Commerce and ordinary citizens – to join together and push for a small portion of that infrastructure fund to be used to restore rail between Letterkenny and Derry. 

Within that, it is essential for the project to not wait on the Derry-Portadown reopening, but to instead be completed by 2035. No-one in Donegal should accept Letterkenny becoming the largest town in Ireland with the poorest level of connectivity. And if the new government wants to show that it takes the transport needs of Donegal and the North-West seriously, then it’s time to give the county back its rail – just like it is doing for Swords and Navan. The Apple infrastructure fund presents a golden one-off opportunity to reconnect Donegal by rail again after 60 years of isolation. Let’s not fail any more generations of people here by letting this huge opportunity slip.

“Into The West are calling for the five TDs elected to represent Donegal in last month’s election to work with the County Council in lobbying the new government to ensure that Letterkenny rail is included in the list of projects that will be funded by its one-off €14bn infrastructure fund,” the group say.