Dublin Airport to Dún Laoghaire
About 21 km south of the airport around the bay; Aircoach's 702 runs there directly through the Port Tunnel, otherwise a taxi is the fuss-free choice.
Dún Laoghaire, Dublinjwd / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.0Dún Laoghaire is a Victorian seaside town on the south bay — a grand harbour with two long granite piers, the People's Park, sea baths and the coastal path toward Sandycove and the Forty Foot.
Every way to get there
Our verdict: for Dún Laoghaire, a private transfer is the easiest door-to-door option (from €50). Travelling light on a budget? The bus is cheapest (from €10) but slower, with a change in the city.
What it costs for your group
The bus is charged per person, while a taxi or private transfer is one price for the whole car — so the more of you there are, the better door-to-door value looks.
| Group | Bus (per person) | Private transfer | Best value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo · 1 traveller | €10 | €50 | Bus |
| Couple · 2 travellers | €20 | €50 | Bus |
| Family of 4 · 4 travellers | €40 | €50 | Bus |
Which option should you choose?
| If your priority is… | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest price | Bus | From €10, though slower with a change in the city. |
| Speed & comfort | Private transfer | Door-to-door, fixed price, a driver waiting for you. |
| A group of 3–4 | Transfer or taxi | One flat fare splits cheaper than several bus tickets. |
| A late-night arrival | Transfer or taxi | Both run 24/7 when buses and the tram have stopped. |
By transport mode
Bus / shuttle
The 702 runs down the coast via Ballsbridge and Booterstown to Dún Laoghaire seafront, no change needed. About €10; the timetable is sparser than the city 700, so plan around it.
Where to catch it: Aircoach 702 (Dalkey) bays outside both terminals.
Best for solo & budget travellersTaxi
Roughly €45-58 by day — it's a long run to the far south of the bay. Traffic through town can push it up, so the tunnel-and-M50 route is usually quicker.
Where to catch it: Taxi rank at arrivals, both terminals.
Best for small groups in a hurryCar rental
From roughly €35/day. Dún Laoghaire has plenty of seafront parking, and a car opens up the whole south coast to Bray and Wicklow.
Where to catch it: Shuttle from arrivals to the car-hire compound.
Best for travellers who want to explorePrivate transfer
A booked people-carrier takes a family or a small group in one go, seats and luggage sorted, rather than splitting across an infrequent coach. Around €50-68 fixed.
Where to catch it: Driver waits in arrivals with your name.
Best for families, groups & late arrivalsDún Laoghaire & Dublin in photos
Buying tickets in Dublin
There is no train or tram to Dublin Airport, so you travel by bus. A Leap Visitor Card (about €8 for one day, €19 for three) covers the Airlink 747 into the city plus all Dublin buses, Luas trams and DART, and is sold at the airport information desks and convenience shops. The faster private coaches, Dublin Express (from around €9) and Aircoach (from around €6 online), do not accept Leap — pay those by contactless card or app instead. Book the coaches online for the lowest fare.
Taxi scams & safety in Dublin
Dublin taxis are regulated and metered, and the official rank sits right outside the arrivals hall — join the queue there rather than accepting any offer from someone inside the terminal. Apps like FreeNow, Bolt and Uber all work here, though in Ireland "Uber" simply dispatches a normal licensed taxi at the metered rate, not a private car. Ask for an estimate or watch the meter, keep to the marked rank or app pickup point, and you will avoid the rare overcharge.
Getting from DUB to Dún Laoghaire
Dún Laoghaire sits at the far south end of Dublin Bay, about 21 km from the airport around the curve of the water — a Victorian harbour town of two long granite piers, the People's Park, the old sea baths, and a coastal walk that runs on toward Sandycove and the Forty Foot. It is also the far corner of the county from the airport, which is the one fact that shapes every option below: you are crossing the whole city to reach it, whether by coach, by meter, or behind your own wheel. Ferry passengers arriving to sail out of the harbour, and anyone drawn by the seafront, both face the same long run south.
The 702 goes down the coast, not through the middle of the city
The single best thing about this route is that Aircoach's 702 reaches Dún Laoghaire directly, with no change on the way. It leaves from the Aircoach bays outside both terminals, drops through the Port Tunnel to skip the city core, then works down the coast road via Ballsbridge and Booterstown to the seafront. Fare is around €10, and the journey takes roughly 55 minutes. The catch is frequency: the 702 runs about hourly, noticeably sparser than the busy 700 into the city centre, and since the 2025 timetable was thinned it pays to check the day's departures and plan your landing around one rather than assuming a coach will be idling at the kerb. The alternative to the 702 is the reason it matters so much — without it you are looking at a city bus plus a DART transfer, a slow stitched-together crawl across the whole city, which no one wants with cases and a ferry to catch.
A metered taxi when the timetable does not line up
If your flight lands in the gap between coaches, the rank at arrivals in both terminals is the straightforward answer. Reckon on €45 to €58 by day — it is a genuinely long haul to the bottom of the bay, so this is one of the pricier town runs from the airport. Drivers almost always take the tunnel-and-M50 loop rather than fighting through the middle of the city, which keeps the time closer to 45 minutes; daytime traffic through the coastal suburbs is what pushes the meter toward the top of that range. For two or three people with luggage arriving off-timetable, the split cost often lands close to what four separate coach tickets would run, and you are set down at your door on the seafront instead of at a stop.
Locking the fare when you are arriving to sail
Anyone catching a ferry out of Dún Laoghaire harbour, or landing with a family and a fixed onward plan, tends to want the arrival time settled before they fly. A pre-booked private transfer does exactly that: a people-carrier from Welcome Pickups or a local Dublin firm meets you in arrivals, takes the whole group and the luggage in one vehicle, and holds a set price of roughly €50 to €68 rather than leaving you to gamble on an hourly coach or split across two taxis. For a group of four with cases heading straight to a sailing, that fixed number and the single vehicle are the appeal — one confirmed price for the long run south, sorted before departure.
Driving, and why a car opens up the coast beyond the town
Hiring at the airport makes most sense if Dún Laoghaire is a base rather than the whole trip. The desks — Hertz, Enterprise, Sixt among them — sit in the car-hire compound reached by shuttle from arrivals, with rates from about €35 a day when booked ahead. The drive is the same 45-minute M50 loop the taxis take. What the car buys you is everything past the town: seafront parking in Dún Laoghaire is plentiful, and from there the coast road carries on through Killiney and Bray into Wicklow, the stretch where public transport thins right out. If your plan is the harbour, the piers, and a day or two of pottering, the 702 covers it and you can skip the hire desk entirely; if you want the wider south coast, the car earns its keep.
The short version: the 702 is the route that makes Dún Laoghaire easy — check its hourly times before you fly, and keep the taxi rank in mind as the fallback for the hours it does not run.
