Living in Cork while working in Dublin. Yes, it can be done. Here’s how

At 4:30am, Faye Murphy’s alarm goes off. Hers is one of a chorus of phones across Cork City waking commuters up for the long day ahead. Before the sun is up and had its coffee, the 26-year-old joins crowds already piling on to a train at Kent Station.

“I was living in Dublin this time last year and my apartment was being sold,” she says in a packed train carriage. “It was a lovely apartment in a great location with reasonable rent, and I just thought that I wasn’t going to get anything better than that.”

She spoke to her employer about moving back to her native Cork and travelling once a week at her own expense to a Dublin office – and it worked. She is one of a growing number of people in Cork catching a train to Dublin for work. Many of her peers also left Dublin for their family homes in Kinsale during the pandemic and never left.

“I find that people in my age cohort, since Covid times, have decided to do the commuting,” she says. “I think people have realised how much they can save by not living in Dublin. For those of us that are trying to save for mortgages, cars – whatever it may be – it makes more financial sense to commute rather than pay for accommodation in Dublin.”

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[ Remote working: ‘We’re essentially changing how people have worked for the last 100 years’ ]

Faye is not alone in her new lifestyle. The three carriages on the 220km direct route to Dublin, which get in at about 8:30am, are fully booked – with the odd empty seat from no-shows.

Inside the carriage is almost silent bar the humming of the engine. Removing this would no doubt reveal an ensemble of rhythmic tapping on keyboards: be it on a tablet, laptop or phone, commuters waste little time starting their working day.

This new breed of commuting is seen as increasingly normal after rolling lockdowns thrust home working into the faces of perhaps previously sceptical bosses. According to commuters who spoke to The Irish Times, some employers are even forking out cash for staff to stay in hotels for a night or two each week, while others couch surf from time to time.

Dublin has chewed up and spat out many from the Rebel County with its eyewatering property prices

But the pandemic was not the only factor influencing moves out of Dublin. Like everything in Ireland these days, it all comes back to property.

Figures from the latest Daft.ie property reports for the last three months of 2022 show asking rents in Cork City reached an average of €1,768 at the end of last year and €1,327 in the rest of the county, compared to Dublin city which has surged passed €2,200 in every area. Asking prices for houses in Cork City and county were averaging €324,840 and €271,953 respectively, while within Dublin’s M50 prices were often touching €400,000.

[ Hybrid working can create a very unequal playing field post-pandemic ]

Dublin has chewed up and spat out many from the Rebel County with its eye-watering property prices and hybrid working has proved to be a godsend for some.

Catherine (33) moved to Cork from Kildare after years of trying to settle in Dublin where she works.

Living in Dublin long-term isn’t sustainable. I was paying half my salary on rent ... It was just a monthly cycle of getting by

“[Dublin rents] really impact the quality of life up there because you’re watching every penny,” she says. “Unless you’re on an unbelievable salary, you can’t live there, pay rent, save and get everything to work out. You have to give up one or the other.”

She finally bought a house in December after four mortgage approvals. While she renovates her new home with her partner, she has moved back in with her parents.

Gráinne Kilcullen, an international development worker who lived in Dublin for five years, also returned to Cork during the pandemic and commutes from Cobh every Thursday.

“I had my first child, and my husband got a job in Cork and I was able to work remotely so it just worked out,” she says. “It didn’t seem very sustainable trying to live in Dublin anyway just with the cost of living and the cost of property, it just makes more sense to be down here.”

Finance employee Amy works from a house she rents in Cork and commutes twice a week. Although it’s “a bit grim and tiring ... it’s something I have to do”, she says.

“Rooms in Dublin can be small; it wasn’t feasible to be working from home. I have a better set-up in Cork now,” she said. “I haven’t really thought about the long term, but this kind of commuting isn’t sustainable for me.”

It’s good to get back into the office as well. Just to meet people and things like that

Equally, “living in Dublin long-term isn’t sustainable”,” she says. “I was paying half my salary on rent, how are you expected to live off the other half and save? It was just a monthly cycle of getting by. So with rent after going up, my salary not going up to match it. It was just going to be worse if I stayed in Dublin.”

Property manager Brendan Fitzgerald was living and working in Dublin for the last decade, but difficulty in buying a house pushed him back to his native Cork. He now works from a house he bought in Togher and commutes to his office in Dublin every two weeks.

“I like coming up to Dublin,” he says. “It’s good to get back into the office as well. Just to meet people and things like that. In Cork at the moment I’m on my own quite a bit, we obviously have [Microsoft] Teams and all those kinds of things to interact with other people, but it’s good to get back into the office.”

The Cork-Dublin commute is firmly in the domain of workers whose jobs lend themselves to hybrid work with nobody commuting more than a day or two per week, any more might negate the savings on Dublin rents or mortgages.

I was constantly outbid when looking for houses in Dublin

Civil servant, Sarah, who commutes weekly, says “even with the cost of transport” she is saving money compared to her previous rents in Dublin. For her, and many others, the pandemic was an “opportunity to get out of Dublin”.

Finance worker Kate Glasheen commutes to Dublin every second week from a house she rents in Cork. House prices pushed her out of Dublin last year. “I just didn’t want to be in Dublin any more,” she says.

Jill Cunningham, who works in fund management, was pushed out of the capital during the pandemic after being “constantly outbid when looking for houses in Dublin”. Now she has settled in a home of her own in Cork.

The stories go on and on. What was once a graveyard shift for train drivers is now a new post-pandemic rush hour. Niall Twomey, who has been commuting weekly from Cork for 14 years, has witnessed a sharp increase in the last year.

“It’s gone way up,” he says. The numbers travelling dipped during the pandemic, but as hybrid working took hold, numbers on the early morning train to Dublin shot up, he says.

Statistics released to The Irish Times by Irish Rail would appear to support Niall’s observations. Since February 2019 passenger numbers on the 5:45am and 6:15am direct trains to Dublin from Tuesday to Thursday have doubled from an average of 90 and 70 pre-pandemic respectively to 180 and 120 in January of this year.

There have also been increases on the Monday and Friday trains from a lower base, but these are proving less popular with hybrid commuters.

Figures show a significant bulk of this increase happened in 2022, with a 45% increase on the 6:15 train since last May and a 32 per cent increase on the 5:45am train.

Irish Rail did not respond to queries about adding carriages to the route at these times, but if trends continue it won’t be long before commuters are standing for the two-and-a-half-hour journey.

Commuters have mixed reactions to this new lifestyle they have adopted, but universally it is felt that it’s worth the property savings outside Dublin.

For Faye Murphy, although the long day can be difficult, she hasn’t looked back on her life in Dublin.

“It’s not ideal, I suppose, but at the same time this was my choice and I’m very happy. I think it’s a small price to pay for getting to live back at home in Cork.”