SHOUT HOTELS · TALLAGHT
Where to Stay in Tallaght: Your Value Base for Dublin
Stay in Tallaght and the whole trip runs on one line. The town sits at the western terminus of the Luas Red Line, about 12 km south-west of the centre, and the tram leaves from the stop opposite The Square and reaches Abbey Street, for O'Connell Street, in roughly 40 minutes. At peak it goes every four to six minutes, so there is nothing to plan and nothing to miss. You sleep well below city-core rates and you still walk out of the tram into the middle of Dublin.
Turn the other way and the Dublin Mountains begin almost at the end of the road. Montpelier Hill with the ruined Hellfire Club lodge on top of it, Massy's Wood across the R115, the Victorian reservoirs at Bohernabreena in the Glenasmole Valley, and the Dublin Mountains Way, a 42.6 km waymarked national trail that starts in Sean Walsh Park here in Tallaght and runs east to Shankill on the coast. No room in the city centre has that behind it.
We are not going to pretend Tallaght is pretty. It is South Dublin's biggest town and it looks the part: a shopping centre, a stadium, a university hospital and a college campus clustered around the tram terminus, with the older monastic heart at St Maelruain's a short walk on. What it sells is a calm, well-connected, lower-cost base with real walking country behind it. If your trip is really about the city centre, our Dublin hub covers staying in town, including The Abbey Hotel. If the trade appeals, read on.
The Dublin Mountains, from the end of the road
This is the half of Tallaght that no city-centre guide can carry, and it is the reason to pick the western suburbs over a room off Grafton Street. The uplands start immediately south of the town, and the walking is genuine rather than municipal.
Montpelier Hill and the Hellfire Club. A 383 m hill crowned by the shell of a hunting lodge built around 1725, and the ruin everyone means when they say the Hellfire Club. The Montpelier Loop from the R115 car park is about 4 km and takes an hour to an hour and a half, and the reward at the top is the whole sweep of Dublin Bay. The car park opens 07:00 to 21:00 from April to September and 08:00 to 17:00 from October to March. It fills early on a fine weekend, which is an argument for staying out here and going up before the day-trippers leave the city.
The visitor centre is proposed, not open. Plenty of older articles describe a Dublin Mountains Visitor Centre at Hellfire with a café, an exhibition and a treetop walkway across the R115 into Massy's Wood. It is a real scheme by South Dublin County Council and Coillte, and it cleared its final legal challenge when the Supreme Court dismissed the residents' association appeal on 24 October 2022. Conservation work on the ruin itself began in September 2024 and ground investigation started earlier that year, but the project is still in detailed design. There is nothing to visit yet. Come for the hill, not the building.
Massy's Wood. The wooded estate on the other side of the R115 from Montpelier Hill, part of the same Coillte recreation site. It pairs naturally with the Hellfire walk and turns a short climb into a proper morning out.
Bohernabreena Reservoir. Two Victorian reservoirs in the Glenasmole Valley on the upper River Dodder, built between 1883 and 1887, though some accounts date them loosely to the 1880s. They are managed by Dublin City Council rather than the local authority, and the popular loop around them is a far gentler outing than the pull up Montpelier.
The Dublin Mountains Way. A 42.6 km waymarked national trail, officially opened on 31 October 2010 and more than half of it off-road, running from Sean Walsh Park in Tallaght east across the hills to Shankill. You can pick up the western trailhead on foot from Old Bawn. Ticknock, further east, is the other popular forest trailhead if you want a shorter day with a car.
Sean Walsh Park and the Dodder Greenway. The park is about 36 hectares of lakes and open ground opened in 1989, known locally as the green lung of Tallaght, and it adjoins Old Bawn Road. From there the Dodder Greenway follows the river towards the city: South Dublin County Council spent 2025 building out the last major urban gap between Firhouse Road and Butterfield Avenue, a stretch of roughly 600 m plus its links, to make a continuous walking and cycling route from Old Bawn through Firhouse and Templeogue to Rathfarnham. A further section downriver in Dublin 4 opened in September 2025.
When to walk. Roughly May to September, when the Hellfire car park keeps its long hours and the light lasts. In winter that same car park shuts at 17:00, the summit is often in cloud, and the tram home runs into darkness by mid-afternoon. Walk in the morning, ride in after lunch.
When to visit Tallaght
Demand here follows Dublin, not Tallaght. City-centre beds sell out and price up around the big set pieces, and that is precisely when a tram-linked room 12 km out earns its keep. Book early for St Patrick's week in mid-March, for marathon weekend in late October, and for any large fixture or concert weekend in the city. Local rooms tighten separately on Shamrock Rovers home nights between February and October, most reliably for derbies and internationals.
Dates ahead:
- Shamrock Rovers men at Tallaght Stadium, 2026 home dates — Friday 7 August v Dundalk, Friday 21 August v Shelbourne, Friday 4 September v Bohemians, Friday 18 September v Waterford, Friday 9 October v Drogheda United and Friday 23 October v Sligo Rovers, all kicking off at 20:00.
- Shamrock Rovers women, 2026 home dates — Saturday 29 August v Athlone Town, Saturday 12 September v Galway United, Saturday 3 October v Cork City and Saturday 17 October v Sligo Rovers, all at 17:00.
- Ireland Women v USA, WXV Global Series rugby — Sunday 20 September 2026, kick-off 13:45, the first women's Test rugby the ground has staged.
- Women's FAI Cup Final — Sunday 27 September 2026 at Tallaght Stadium.
- Dublin Horse Show — 5 to 9 August 2026, one of the city dates that pushes demand out to the suburbs.
- Irish Life Dublin Marathon — Sunday 25 October 2026, wave starts from 08:45 on Leeson Street. City beds go long before the day.
- St Patrick's Festival, Dublin city centre — mid-March. The 2027 dates and programme had not been published when we last checked, so confirm them before you build a trip around that week.
- 2027 League of Ireland fixtures — not yet published. Only the 2026 dates above are firm; check the club before you book around a match next year.
Quietest and cheapest. Midweek outside the football season and away from the March and October peaks. The mountains are at their best in the long days of early summer, the tram is least crowded outside commuter hours, and demand here is driven by the city's calendar far more than by the town's own.
Best areas to stay in Tallaght
Tallaght village and The Square
The commercial core, wrapped around the Luas terminus. The Square shopping centre sits directly opposite the tram, with the stadium, Tallaght University Hospital and the TU Dublin campus all inside a walk. Best for: first-timers who want the tram, the shops, the cinema and dinner all on foot. Skip if: you came for charm; this is a working town centre, not a village in the old sense. Getting around: the Red Line from the door, and the town's whole bus network converges here.
Old Bawn
The residential district running south from the town towards the hills, quiet, green at the edges, and beside Sean Walsh Park and the Dodder. This is the walkers' and drivers' choice. Best for: calm nights, easy parking and morning starts into the mountains. Skip if: you want to fall out of bed onto the tram, because you cannot. Getting around: about 17 minutes on foot to The Square and the Luas, or the 49 and the 65 buses; the Old Bawn Centre stop also carries the 65B, the S6 and the S8 and Local Link SD3 and SD4. Our stay here: Clarendon, a small family-run B&B on Watermeadow Park with free parking and free WiFi, roughly ten minutes' walk from Tallaght Stadium. Be clear-eyed about what it is: a house in a residential street rather than a hotel, so on-site facilities are limited, some rooms use a shared bathroom, and the tram is that walk or bus away.
Firhouse and Knocklyon
Outer South Dublin suburbs just outside the M50, near the Dodder and the mountain foothills, and largely modern housing. No tram at all. Best for: self-drivers who want quiet and space and are heading for the hills anyway. Skip if: you have no car, because everything here is bus-dependent. Getting around: drive, or plan around bus times.
Citywest and Saggart
The other arm of the Red Line, which splits from the Tallaght branch at Belgard and runs to Saggart by way of Citywest Campus and Fortunestown. The Saggart branch opened in 2011, and there is a large hotel and convention centre out here. Best for: conference guests and anyone who wants a big hotel literally on the tram. Skip if: you want the mountains, which are on the Tallaght and Old Bawn side of the map. Getting around: the Red Line, but check which branch your tram is signed for before it leaves.
Getting to Tallaght and around
The Luas Red Line, which is the whole point. Tallaght is the western terminus, opposite The Square, and the line runs about 20 km and 32 stops through the city to Connolly and The Point, with the Saggart branch splitting off at Belgard. Tallaght to Abbey Street is roughly 40 minutes. Frequency is around four to six minutes at peak and about ten off-peak, so the Luas runs on headway rather than a timetable you need to read. Broad operating hours are about 05:30 to 00:30 Monday to Friday, 06:30 to 00:30 on Saturday and 07:00 to 23:00 on Sunday, but the exact first and last trams at the Tallaght stop are not published to the minute, so check the TFI journey planner if you are cutting it fine. The Tallaght, Cookstown, Belgard and Kingswood stops all serve the town, and there is a stop named Hospital for Tallaght University Hospital.
Tickets. Every stop has a ticket machine taking coins, notes and contactless, or you can use a TFI Leap Card or the TFI Go app. With a Leap Card you must tap on before boarding and tap off when you leave. Nothing is sold on board and you need a valid ticket at all times.
Buses. Old Bawn is on Dublin Bus route 49, which runs Tallaght to Pearse Street by way of Old Bawn Road in around an hour end to end, and on the 65 and 65B. Go-Ahead Ireland runs the S6, S8, W2 and W4 through Tallaght. One honest note: some evening services in west Tallaght have been curtailed from time to time after anti-social incidents, so check live TFI information rather than an old timetable if you are travelling late.
From Dublin Airport. There is no direct rail. Take a Dublin Coach express to the Red Cow Luas stop, a run of about 20 minutes, and change onto the Red Line; or take the Airport Hopper shuttle, which runs hourly towards Tallaght by way of Lucan and Clondalkin. Allow around an hour to Old Bawn once you have made the connection.
Driving. Tallaght sits inside the M50 orbital; come off at Junction 11 for the N81, which runs through the town past the stadium. If you are driving from elsewhere in Ireland and only want the car for the hills, the Red Cow Park and Ride is the sensible move: it is open for entry and exit around the clock, and the tariff is €2 for up to four hours and €4 maximum for a day. There is also large parking at The Square, and around 450 spaces at Tallaght Stadium, which are allocated to pass holders on match days.
One caveat about the tram. The Red Line is running at or beyond its peak capacity. In 2025 the operators chose to add more trams and drivers rather than lengthen the vehicles, because so much of the line is street-running and shares road space with traffic, and a longer-term expansion vision was set out the same year. In practice that means a rush-hour tram out of the city can be standing room only. Travel either side of the peak and it is a comfortable 40 minutes.
Eating, drinking and an evening out in Tallaght
Here is the honest version, because you will not get it elsewhere. Tallaght is a place to eat conveniently rather than a place to eat out. The Square carries more than 160 units anchored by Tesco, Dunnes and Penneys, with a 13-screen cinema attached, and it is directly opposite the tram, so it handles the supermarket run, the picnic for the hill and a wet-afternoon film without any planning at all. What our research did not turn up is a destination restaurant scene, and we are not going to invent one.
What the town does have is an evening that belongs to it. A Friday-night home game at Tallaght Stadium is the real local occasion: 10,547 seats since the North Stand completed the fourth side in 2024, a proper atmosphere, and walkable from Old Bawn. Rua Red, the South Dublin Arts Centre on Blessington Road, runs free-admission galleries, a performance space and artists' studios, with a rolling programme that opened its 2026 gallery year on 6 March with These Beautiful Men by Brian Maguire; check ruared.ie for what is on the week you visit. And if you want a serious dinner, that is what the tram is for. Forty minutes, every few minutes, and the whole of the city's kitchens at the other end.
If you are basing yourself in Old Bawn, plan a little. It is residential, so buy what you need at The Square on the way through or take the 49 or the 65 back in for the evening rather than assuming there is something around the corner.
