I used to think the Luas was foolproof. A tram. On rails. Comes, goes, everyone gets on, everyone gets off. Like a polite, organised snake.
Then I started bringing tourists near it.
The first mistake everyone makes is assuming it works like a normal city tram system. You look for barriers. There are none. You look for gates. There are none. You look for a man in a booth. He retired in 1987 and now lives in Wexford. You stand there holding a ticket, feeling strangely under-supervised, like a child left alone in a sweet shop.
I once watched an American man try to tap his credit card on a map.
He did it with confidence too. Three taps. Nothing. He frowned at the map like it was being deliberately uncooperative. Then he tried the bin.
The Luas has two lines, which is already more than it really wants to deal with. The Green Line is the one that looks like it’s taking you somewhere important. The Red Line is the one that looks like it’s taking you somewhere you’ll have to explain later. This is not official. This is just how they feel.
Tourists don’t care which one they’re on. They care about whether they’re on it at all.
The ticket machines are always surrounded by a small knot of confused humanity. Someone is pressing the screen too hard. Someone else is pressing it too gently. One person is just standing there, arms folded, waiting for the machine to apologise and start again.
You buy the ticket. You think you’re done.
You are not done.
You have to validate it. This involves finding a small pole, usually positioned in exactly the place you are not currently standing, and touching your ticket to it until it makes a noise that sounds faintly disappointed in you. If you don’t do this, nothing obvious will happen. No alarm. No flashing light. No shame bell.
The shame comes later.
Luas inspectors do not drift in gently. They appear like magicians who specialise in fines. One moment you’re thinking about your dinner. The next moment a person in a high-vis vest is asking you a question you already know you’re going to answer wrong.
“I have a ticket,” people say, proudly.
“Yes,” the inspector says, “but did you validate it?”
And that’s how a family holiday gains a story it didn’t want.
Platform etiquette is another small exam nobody tells you you’re sitting. The correct place to stand is never where you are standing. If you are in the doorway, you will discover this when twelve people attempt to get off through you. If you are standing near the edge, you will discover this when someone with a buggy arrives and looks at you like you personally designed the platform.
The doors open. People surge. Someone stops dead for no reason. Someone else tries to get on before anyone has got off. This is not rudeness. This is just Dublin in a hurry having a small think.
There are certain stops where tourists always look around in mild panic. Abbey Street. Jervis. Anything near College Green, which is never as near College Green as you think it is. This is usually the moment when half a group gets on and half a group doesn’t, and everyone waves at each other like they’re being separated at a railway station in a war film.
I once lost six Germans this way. Found them again an hour later. They were in great form. They had bought new hats.
The thing about the Luas is that it works perfectly well. It’s clean. It’s fast. It goes where it says it’s going. It just expects you to already know how it works. And if you don’t, it will not help you learn. It will simply wait for you to make a small, private mistake and then charge you for it.
Which, now that I think about it, is actually a very Dublin system.
Last week I watched a man validate his ticket three times, just to be sure. The machine beeped each time, sounding more and more tired of him. He nodded at it, satisfied, and got on the tram like a man who had just passed an exam he didn’t remember revising for.
Honestly, that’s the correct attitude.
