Mark Kerr, a history student in his third year at Trinity College Dublin, must rise early at 6:50am for a 9am lecture. He stays at his family home in Navan, Co Meath and takes the 7:20am bus to commute. Considering Dublin’s exorbitant renting prices, even for student accommodation, Kerr finds it infeasible. For him, the high costs of living near the university outweigh its convenience.
His journey home after a 6pm lecture, during rush hour, can be quite challenging too. High demand in the evenings often means that buses are filled to capacity, potentially leaving him to wait a further 30 minutes for the next bus. The commute could stretch to two hours due to traffic.
Initially, Kerr had aimed to secure accommodation near Trinity. However, he soon acknowledged the prohibitive costs of this plan. Instead, and by using his student Leap card, the daily commute costs around €5.
Kerr admits he’d likely attend college more frequently if he lived closer, as sometimes the travel isn’t worth it for a single class. He observes that the four-hour round trip is a significant drain on his time and is wasted on a bus.
Despite working part-time at a butchery in Navan one or two days a week, he reiterates that living closer to college requires full-time employment in Dublin, a luxury he can’t afford at this stage. His aspiration is to pursue a postgraduate degree, adding to the financial strain.
Navan and Naas in Co Kildare are among several Irish towns that house a large student population commuting to third-level institutes, like Caoimhe Ní Mhaitiú. She studies at the Technological University Dublin in Grangegorman. Ní Mhaitiú must wake at 6am to catch her bus for a 9am lecture. She generally leaves college at around 5pm and, much like Kerr, takes two hours to get home.
Ní Mhaitiú, a second-year film and broadcasting student living near Naas, reveals that a large portion of her peers also live outside of Dublin and commute every day. Her own journey includes using public transportation, either via a mix of train and tram or a direct bus route. While the travel time is not drastic, it isn’t particularly convenient either.
Ní Mhaitiú – who, at the age of 20, still resides with her parents like many others in Naas – is contemplating relocating closer to her college in her last year. However, she acknowledges the high rents as a major barrier to this plan. Her long-term desire is to continue living in Ireland, however, the feasibility of this depends substantially on the rental market dynamics.
Being a commuter student affects not only the academic part of her life, with early lectures and late activities becoming a hassle, but also imposes limitations on her social interactions. The inflexibility of her travel schedule often renders her unable to participate in impromptu meet-ups with friends or college society events.
Like Ní Mhaitiú, first-year commerce student Emily Stanford also faces her own commuting woes as she travels from Gort to the University of Galway. Currently, she’s awaiting a vacancy in student accommodation at the university.
“We’re on the search for a suitable house as well, but there’s not much available,” she remarks. “The morning commute typically takes around an hour, traffic permitting. However, our trip to orientation yesterday took us a 1½ hours.”
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The same prospects face her companions from Gort. The recently started arts undergraduate, Martina Fahey, is becoming increasingly aware of how her homeward travel will affect her use of university facilities.
“Most individuals from Gort opted for UL as it’s more easily accessible,” she articulates. “Evening society activities usually take place between seven and nine. But the last bus home departs around eight or nine.”