The late-night revellers on the Nitelink aren't as wild as you might think - until it comes to the last bus, writes Kate Holmquist
If you enjoy observing people, then the Christmas season on Nitelink is the greatest show on earth - especially when you're sober and everyone else is in an altered state of consciousness. It's a slightly weird feeling, a bit like visiting a mobile asylum, but I can certainly see why Dublin Bus drivers might cheerfully volunteer for these all-night routes, even if it weren't for the overtime.
Last Nitelink bus: 4.30am. To see the slightly bewildered revellers crowding and shoving to get on it, you'd think it was the last bus out of hell.
Within minutes, the relaxed buzz of the crowds swarming the streets turns to panic. Needlessly, I should add. Paddy Gill, Nitelink inspector, wears a snappy suit and a tie with colourful buses on it. "I can truthfully say that in all the years I've been Nitelink inspector, no one has ever been left behind, as long as they're at the stop by 4.30." Between 3am and 3.30am, when the clubs close, people pile out onto the streets and will even jump out in front of the bus and try to hail it in the middle of the road, treating the bus like a taxi. Some are too bleary-eyed to decipher the numbers on the sign. There's particular confusion between the No 7, which goes to Shankill, and the No 77, which goes to Tallaght, particularly for people going to Shankill who think they're seeing double.
Driver John Heaney says that many a disoriented traveller has found himself at the City West hotel asking for walking directions to Shankill Village. "At 4.30am, it all looks the same. You don't leave them in Tallaght because a taxi back would cost €50 and the next bus isn't until 5.30am - later on a Sunday. So we bring them back into town."
"Carlsberg don't do Nitelinks," the drivers joke. But if they did . . .
Drivers are especially protective when dealing with what they gallantly term "young ladies" - lone, drunk girls, in other words - sometimes going out of their way to get the girl as near as possible to her door, or at least to a taxi that can get her home safely.
DRIVER JAMES FOX says: "After a few drinks, they don't know where they're going. You wouldn't want to be the one who left her off then learn the next day that something had happened to her. It could be your sister, or your mother, or your daughter." He explains that the "men in nice suits" who appear to be mild-mannered citizens during the day, can turn into predatory wolves with a few drinks on them in the early hours.
The drivers are protective - and discreet. "It's gas when you see passengers at 3am or 4am on a Saturday night and they're giving you their phone number, then you pick them up on Monday morning going to work and they don't know who you are," says a driver while his colleagues nod in agreement. Driver Marius Cila says: "You have to understand that with a few drinks in you, you'd act the same . . .They're all great singers at half-three in the morning."
I take the 48n to Ballinteer. A well-tailored young power couple are having a row. "I can't believe we're taking public transport!" the woman is saying, as if she'd been asked to strip naked and run down Grafton Street. "If I'd known, I'd have taken the car. I don't have to drink. I've done it before. He could have driven us to our door! Your father's a retired man, for Chris'sake!" The woman's partner wisely keeps his mouth shut as he escorts his exasperated companion home to bed, with maybe the cost of their mortgage in mind, given that the Nitelink fare of €4 or €6 per passenger is a snip compared to what taxis charge.
Tyrone says that travelling by bus at night got a bad reputation years ago when "about 20" kids in Tallaght persecuted drivers by smashing in the windows with tennis balls stuffed with stones. Driving the Nitelink, he's seen people "having sex; urinating; taking dumps". Seven years ago, there was a lot of trouble on his bus and Tyrone had to drive his bus straight into a garda station.
But there's rarely any trouble, and if there is he parks the bus and gives the offenders a few stern words.
"You have to stay in good humour and be polite, no matter how obstreperous someone becomes. Whatever they say, you can't let it get to you," he says.
Having seen nothing but good behaviour, I get on the Nitelink to Dalkey, and the driver confides: "On buses to Tallaght they beat the shit out of each other. On the buses to Foxrock they bullshit each other to death."
As I sit on the top deck of the bus from College Green, going through Foxrock, to Dalkey, a Cyndi Lauper lookalike gets on - hair like a bird's nest, puffy pink dress and high heels, with a limp slice of feta-cheese pizza in her hand.
She finds a group of boys she knows from school, and begins a monologue of her evening's exploits. One pub she managed to get into had "old guys galore", so she went to Wesley Disco, where she watched a "fat girl" break a toilet. She flirts with the boys, trying gamely to get at least one of them to walk her home, and when they don't respond she teeters off the bus in her heels, with her wobbling pizza slice.
I hope the driver is keeping an eye on her, because her boy friends aren't taking responsibility. Beside me, a fellow in a knit cap is nodding off, even though the heating is turned off. A girl escorts a dozy boy onto the bus and shouts at us all to look after him and to make sure he calls her when he gets home.
A TIPSY GERMAN couple use their native language to ask what stop to get off at and we all stare up at them blankly until someone points down the stairs and mimes to "ask the driver". I have noticed, in the course of the night, how the drivers take pains with each passenger, sometimes speaking very slowly so that the passenger understands, the way you would with children in an infant class.
My stop is coming up, right at the end of my road. As I stumble towards my bed, marvelling at how peaceful the world is at this hour of the morning, my last thought is: "Why have I been wasting money on taxis all these years?"
