[Mark Gleeson]

Ennis is charged at the full rate of the Dublin/Cork/Kerry/Limerick/Dundalk rate. Everything else is on a discounted rate of some kind which varies. Ennis is afforded a discount in the sense its the same fare as Dublin Limerick.

Dublin Limerick does get almost a train an hour if not better and its mostly double track which is the justification for the higher fare according to Irish Rail. Weekender discounts where never that significant on the secondary routes as discounted fares already applied. Now the obvious question is what if you go via Athenry?

Its all really a side effect of the fact the system can't combine fares from different routes, you should pay Cork rate per km to Limerick Junction then the regional rate per km to Ennis, Irish Rail just charge the highest rate regardless even if you only travel 10% of the journey on the expsenive routes

Advice here is to take advantage of the online fares, yes they aren't any help at peak hours but you should be able to beat the weekender fare if you choose off peak or one leg off peak, one on peak. There is a big change coming soon which should mean that you can get cheap fares any train any day but only if you book early

Of course this all should have been implemented (Sligo and Rosslare line as well etc) before the weekender card was pulled

The more cynical would think its Irish Rail freeing up memory on the ticket machines to cope with Midelton, the WRC and Pace