Sir, – I travelled by train from Belfast to Dublin on the 8am Enterprise service on a recent Friday, and then onwards to Cork on the 11am InterCity. The Belfast-Dublin leg was noticeable for the welcome absence (as best I can recall) of any recorded announcements at the approach to or departure from any of the three stops en route.
Anticipating the contrast, I recorded the number of announcements between Dublin and Cork. It amounted to an eye-watering 40, consisting in the main of the same set of three announcements in Irish, followed by the English translation, at each of the six stops along the journey. Am I alone in finding this to be a form of gratuitous aural persecution?
Surely Iarnród Éireann could confine these repeated broadcasts to, say, Heuston and Limerick Junction. One final quibble: The flat, schoolboy-Irish delivery of the announcements as Gaeilge compares unfavourably with the cainteoir dúchais blas to be heard on the Luas from Connolly to Heuston. – Yours, etc,