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Rosslare Europort (Irish: Calafort Ros Láir) is a modern seaport located at Rosslare Harbour in County Wexford, Ireland, near the southeastern-most point of Ireland, handling passenger and freight ferries to and from Wales and France.
Contents
- Map of Rosslare Europort Co Wexford Ireland
- SailRail
- Irish Rail and Ferry Connections
- Details
- References
Map of Rosslare Europort, Co. Wexford, Ireland
The port, formerly called Rosslare Harbour, is operated by Iarnród Éireann, Ireland's national railway operator, which provides trains between Dublin Connolly and Rosslare Europort railway station, in the port (5 minutes walk from the Terminal Building), some timed to connect to/from ferries to Wales and France.
SailRail
The Rosslare Harbour/Europort ferry connection using Stena Line to Fishguard Harbour and then by train operated by Arriva Trains Wales to Carmarthen, Swansea and Cardiff linking into Great Western to Bristol Parkway, Reading and London Paddington. This is popular with Rugby fans going to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff or Lansdowne Road in Dublin. Train and ferry connections across the Irish Sea are promoted as an alternative to air. [1]
Irish Rail and Ferry Connections
Trains connect the port on the Rosslare Line via Wexford, Enniscorthy, Gorey, Arklow, Wicklow, Bray to Dublin Connolly.
Onward rail connecting trains from Dublin Connolly link with the Sligo Line with Mullingar, Longford and Sligo and the Belfast Line to Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, Portadown, Lisburn and Belfast Central.
Details
The harbour has four berths. Passenger ferries operate to and from Fishguard (Stena Line) and Pembroke Dock (Irish Ferries) in Wales, and to Cherbourg and Roscoff in France.
An all-weather RNLI lifeboat is on station, and the Irish Coast Guard helicopter at Waterford Airport provides air-sea rescue cover.
An automatic weather station is maintained adjacent to the port by Met Éireann.
The port also receives ships importing new cars into the country. The importer depot is in Rosslare Harbour Village.
The port area is largely on reclaimed land. Reclamation work continued to the late 1990s, when the northwest part of the port was constructed using a dragline. Modernisation of facilities has continued to encourage the increase in cars carried on the ferries despite a drop in foot passengers.
Facilities in the terminal building include a cafe with shop, ferry company desks, car rental and self-service left-luggage lockers. Railway services to Wexford and Dublin Connolly are located at new platform. Bus services to Wexford, Dublin, Cork, and Waterford leave from just outside. Bus and rail connections to Cork, County Kerry, and Limerick, and bus connections to County Clare and Galway are available from Waterford.
At Rosslare, Iarnród Éireann is an infrastructure provider and operator, providing port facilities and related services, including stevedoring, to shipping lines. Rosslare Europort is operated as a Common User Terminal, meaning that the port authority carries out all stevedoring activities on a common user basis for all shipping lines using the port.
Rosslare has also handled rolltrailer traffic in the recent past, when Cobelfret operated a service from Rosslare to Zeebrugge/Rotterdam (October 2008 to September 2009). Rolltrailers enable the carriage of lift-on lift-off (LoLo) traffic on roll-on roll-off (RoRo) ships.
Rosslare Europort is the second most strategically important seaport in the State after Dublin. It is the second-busiest port in terms of ship visits and gross tonnage, and handles more unitised freight than any other Irish seaport except Dublin – in fact Rosslare handles more unitised freight than all other seaports in the State, excluding Dublin, put together. Unitised freight is important because all of the high added-value exports on which Ireland's economic recovery depends are exported as unitised freight.