How early can I get to / from ...
 

Dublin

The fact that you can't make it to any of the provincial cities from Dublin before 9am is nothing short of a disgrace. I know demand is thin, but would a 3 car ICR with a connection to Limerick kill? There's already an 8am Limeric Junction-Limerick, so just get there before that.

If it leaves a set out of place, create a 10am Cork-Tralee and 12:15pm Tralee-Dublin direct.

I'd hate to see the maps for other Irish cities. They wouldn't be pretty, although Limerick might not be the worst. 9am should at least be possible from Cork and Galway.

I'm working on them.

Perhaps the most farcical of the lot is that you can't reach Dublin from Belfast (or vice versa) before 0900.

Cork
 

Note that the journey planner often includes excessive amounts of time for layovers / transfers, especially Connolly-Heuston, but also at some other locations. I have included a reasonable amount of time for such transfers, but it doesn't allow for the train on the first service to be late, e.g. I have included Cork-Waterford to arrive at 09:43 via Newbridge, where there is only 4 minute for the connection at Newbridge. Given the tight timings at intermediate stops, this may not be possible all of the time.

Colm Moore I think you could put the 07.20 to Kilkenny into the (before 09.00 band) as it arrives at 09.01.

I see what you are saying, but it wouldn't be accurate. To a degree, using the bands is unfair in a small number of cases like this, e.g. Cork-Dublin is 0810, which puts it into the Before 0900 band by 50 minutes.

Galway
 

Not that the connection when coming from Clongriffin-Dundalk, with 36 minutes (from Connolly) for the DART stations and 31 minutes (from Connolly) for the Commuter stations. At 29 minutes (from Connolly), the connections from Maynooth-Drumcondra is too tight, although exactly where one draws the line is another matter.

Waterford
 

Waterford.

If anyone spots an error or a marginal case, do let me know

Limerick
 

Limerick

Belfast
 

I nearly forgot about these two.