Getting to Carrick-on-Shannon, and the station that is not in Leitrim

Carrick-on-Shannon is an easy town to reach and a slightly awkward one to arrive in, and the gap between those two things catches people out. Here is how each route actually works.

The train, and the station that is in the wrong county

Carrick sits on the Dublin Connolly to Sligo line. The station opened on 3 December 1862 and its Irish Rail code is CKOSH, which matters mainly because there is a Carrick-on-Suir in Co. Tipperary sitting one letter away at CKOSR. It is a through-station, so trains stop in both directions and you are never waiting at a terminus.

The thing nobody mentions is that the station is not in Co. Leitrim. It stands on the west bank of the Shannon in Cortober, which is Co. Roscommon. From the platform you walk down to the Cortober road, over the bridge, and up into town: about 1.3 km all in, or fifteen to twenty minutes on a footpath with a bag. It is a perfectly pleasant walk in daylight and a long one in February rain with a suitcase, so have a taxi number if the forecast is poor. There is no all-hours rank, and taxis here work by phone.

Frequency is the other thing to plan around. On the timetable in force from 14 December 2025, eight trains call each way Monday to Friday, seven on Saturday and six on Sunday. That works out at roughly one every two hours rather than a service you can turn up for. The first departure towards Dublin on a weekday leaves Carrick at 06:24 and gets into Connolly at 08:49; the last arrival from Dublin comes in at 21:45. Journey time from Connolly is a little over two hours, and Sligo is about an hour further on. Buy in advance online, because walk-up fares are dearer and the ticket office is not a late-evening option.

The coach, which lands you better

Bus Éireann's Expressway Route 23 runs Dublin to Sligo by the M4 and stops in the middle of Carrick, opposite the Landmark Hotel. That is on the Leitrim side of the bridge, two minutes from Bridge Street, and it is the single biggest practical advantage the bus has over the train. Six services run each way Monday to Saturday and five on Sundays and public holidays.

Route 23 also picks up at Dublin Airport, which removes a transfer entirely if you are flying in. The airport run takes roughly two hours and forty-five minutes; from Busáras in the city it is about three hours and ten. Check current fares with the operator rather than assuming, and check the service variation notes on the timetable page, because individual departures get added and removed around bank holidays.

Driving

The N4 Dublin to Sligo road runs through the town and is motorway for much of its length out of the capital. Dublin is about two hours, Sligo about fifty minutes, Galway about two hours by the N17 and N4. The pinch point is the bridge, which carries the through-traffic and the school run at the same time, so cross it at the wrong hour and you will sit.

Park once. There is public parking at the marina and along St George's Terrace, and the retail parks on the Dublin Road and the Cortober side have bigger car parks. Everything most visitors come for is inside a 1.4 km loop on foot. One satnav warning: crossing the bridge puts you in Co. Roscommon, and some address searches disagree with each other about which county a Carrick business is in as a result.

Flying in

Dublin Airport is about 158 km away and is the practical arrival point for most visitors, because of the direct Route 23 coach. Ireland West Airport Knock is closer at about 74 km, roughly an hour and ten minutes by road, but there is no scheduled public transport link from Knock to Carrick, so you will need a hire car or a pre-booked transfer.

If you are here for a hire cruiser, both marina operators run their own airport transfers. Le Boat operates a standard Saturday run from Dublin Airport at around forty euro per person, with other days available if you have the numbers. Carrickcraft runs scheduled transfers every day except Sunday. Both quote journey times of two to three hours.

Once you are here

You will not need transport in town. The bar count, the arts centre, the chapel, the heritage centre, the marina and both hotels are all inside a fifteen-minute walk of each other. A bike is more useful for getting out of Carrick than around it: the Shannon Blueway carries a ten-kilometre walking and cycling path towards Drumshanbo, and both cruiser bases hire bikes as an add-on.

Local Link runs rural services into the town from both the Leitrim and Roscommon networks. They are built around school and shopping patterns, so they will get you here from a village in the morning and are not a way to get back after dinner.