Exploring Ireland by rail is just the ticket, and even better if you are aged over 66, says STEPHEN McCLARENCE

JUST ONE day into our rail tour of Ireland and I'm fretting already. We've got a tight, six-minute connection at the next station, I witter to the ticket inspector, and we're running (I glance anxiously at my watch) 10 minutes late. We may miss the connection. Oh dear.

The ticket inspector nods indulgently and smiles. "The train w ill wait, " he says. "Don't you worry at all."
There you have it. A hint of just how calm and relaxing it can be to explore Ireland by train and, if you're of a certain age, how cheap.

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Until the end of the year, the new Golden Trekker scheme offers tourists over the age of 66 up to 12 days of free rail travel, so silver surfers can go golden trekking in the Emerald Isle.

Though well short of 66, my wife and I are rail-testing the scheme for four days. Our tin-whistle-stop tour takes us across the middle of the country, from Dublin to Galway; down to Killarney in Kerry; on to Tralee, which is as far west as you can go by train; and then back up to Dublin. It includes fast trains, slower local trains and a new line that's been open for only a couple of months, but that's enough technical stuff.

Ireland's rail network fans out from Dublin, which means careful planning if you want to criss-cross the country. You can get to Sligo for instance, which is up in the north-west through the wonderfully named Curlew Mountains, but you have to come back the same way.

The line to Galway offers more scope for branching off. We start on a Monday morning at Dublin's impressively spruce Heuston station. What smug joy it is at 9am to sit back and watch commuters marching doggedly along the platforms at the start of their working week. The train is smart and fast (136 miles in two-and-ahalf hours) and we're lulled by the rich lilting voice of the announcer on the intercom.

He recites the station names like a bard reciting a ballad: Monasterevin, Ballinasloe, Attymon, Athenry followed by a snatch of lyrical Gaelic. Its English translation was the far less lyrical: "Your attention is drawn to the safety and evacuation notices."

We speed through a pleasant rural landscape dotted with reefs of yellow gorse as snatches of conversation drift up the carriage.

"As the third of 16 children. . ."

Not a line you hear often on a train journey in Britain.

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We've been warned that Galway is "touristy" and there's certainly no lack of Montmartre-style pavement cafés. One of the streets is called Shop Street: the clue is in the name. A community of post-hippies seems to have settled here, perhaps lured by the traditional music and slightly self-conscious folksiness. "You can practise until you die, " one man is telling another in a music shop full of bodhrans (Irish drums), "but if you're not gifted. . . well, it's got to be in you, hasn't it?"

Our highlights here are dinner at the stylish Kirwan's Lane Restaurant, which serves fabulously innovative Irish fare, and a night at the Park House Hotel with its old-world charm, cosy rooms, friendly staff and soft harp music.

From Galway most visitors head out into the dramatic land and seascapes of Connemara but come Tuesday we've got a train to catch to Killarney. Four trains, in fact, with three changes. Even with a newly opened stretch of line, the zigzag, 120-mile journey takes four-and-a-half hours but, as we know, Ireland is no place to rush.

The landscape gets gradually more rugged and romantic, with windswept trees, tumbledown walls and ruined medieval towers smothered in ivy. Travelling in our carriage is an old man with a flat cap perched on his ginger toupé, a stubble-haired youth with a golden eagle tattooed across his neck, shoppers, business types and men with rucksacks who jump out at each station to photograph the train.

Past Limerick Junction (whimsically 25 miles from Limerick, and only a short way to Tipperary) a blue-grey curtain of mountains looms on the horizon as we near Killarney, which has kept its charm despite coach parties and gift shops. If you need a shamrock keyring or Guinness fridge magnet, this is the place.

One of the best reasons for staying here is the Malton Hotel, a refurbished railway hotel on a country-house scale, with antique furniture and glorious grounds.

From here, on Wednesday, we take a half-hour connection to Tralee (less gifty-shoppy) and discover a bus that in just over an hour, takes us on to Dingle to see part of the town's wonderful peninsula.

Climbing higher and higher, the bus stops at the bottom of winding country lanes and farmers' wives get off to amble home with their shopping.

On the way back to Dublin on the Thursday, I trace our route on a map and link up the different stations in highlighter pen. They form the shape of an Irish harp.

It's a moment of revelation, a small transport miracle. They should set up a rail-side shrine to the Golden Trekker.

GETTING THERE:
Golden Trekker (0800 039 7000/ www.discoverireland.com/goldentrekker) free four-day passes are available for rail travel in the Republic of Ireland for visitors aged 66 and over (passport validation required). Applications must be made at least 48 hours before arriving in Ireland.

Offer ends December 31, 2010.

Park House Hotel, Galway (dialling from the UK: 00353 9156 4924/www.parkhousehotel.ie) offers doubles from €110 (two sharing), B&B.

Malton Hotel, Killarney (6466 38000/www.themalton.com) offers doubles from €150 (two sharing), B&B.

Tourism Ireland: 0800 039 7000/ www.discoverireland.com