For much of the last week Rachel Forde was worried that she and her dog Ralph wouldn’t make it back to Naas for Christmas.
Her Irish Ferries sailing from Holyhead to Dublin – booked in advance for last Saturday, December 14th – was cancelled after Storm Darragh caused significant damage to the major ferry port in the Welsh town. The port has been closed since the onset of the storm earlier this month, and will not reopen until at least the middle of January.
Ms Forde – who lives in London – priced flying back to Dublin with Ralph, but the cheapest routes were coming in at €1,500.
In the end, she was able to find a Stena Line sailing with facilities for dogs, leaving Fishguard in south Wales for Dublin on Thursday morning.
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“I had to go from London to Fishguard last night with him, 5½ hours [on the train], stay in Fishguard last night, and then get up at 6 o’clock and walk an hour to the boat this morning,” she said, speaking to The Irish Times after disembarking at Dublin Port on Thursday evening.
“And it [the sailing] was delayed, so eight hours later, here we are. So it was long.”
She had considered the prospect of not coming home. “I was trying to make plans for [Ralph] to stay with friends over there, but it’s his first Christmas, so I didn’t want to leave him. I’m delighted to be home. I don’t think I’ll go back,” she said, laughing.
Her father, John, spent the afternoon at the ferry port terminal waiting patiently to collect Rachel and Ralph.
Expressing delight at having his daughter back in Ireland, he said: “It’s gas isn’t it, what you have to go through [for the dog].”
Rita Nugent, from Newbridge, Co Kildare was also at the terminal on Thursday, waiting to collect her daughter Ciara, son-in-law Jani, their six-month-old son Niall and dog, Daisy.
She said that she told her daughter to look into her travel arrangements when she realised that foot passengers were being impacted by the damage at Holyhead as well as hauliers.
Her daughter changed their Holyhead-Dublin Stena Line booking to the Fishguard-Dublin service with relative ease, she said.
“It’s nobody’s fault,” she said, agreeing that it was an inconvenience “at a very emotional time of the year”.
Martin Dunkin, based in Drogheda, was at the port to collect from the Fishguard-Dublin boat his wife Mary, their daughter Maria and two dogs, Compo and Norman – a nod to the BBC sitcom, Last of the Summer Wine.
He wasn’t worried about not getting them home for Christmas.
“The risk was that if Maria had to come by plane, she wouldn’t be able to bring the dogs.”
They have yet to make arrangements to go back to England.
“At the moment they’re talking about [reopening Holyhead on] January 15th . . . they’ll probably have to go back the same route again.”
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