Ireland day 1196. Monday 06 January 2025- Intreo

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Today’s summary	Went to the dentist for a check up first thing. Then after lunch, walked along the coast to the Swords Intreo office to fill in form FTNI(1) to apply for a free travel card for Northern Ireland. The application was approved and I should get the card in about six weeks. After doing some shopping in the Pavilions centre, walked back down the Dublin Road. Made salad for dinner then had a quiet evening reading my book and watching YouTube.
Today’s weather	Bright and sunny in the morning, some cloud later on. Dry all day. Light westerly wind. Appx 3c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The yellow arrowed line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Intreo Swords loop walk

Commentary

Now that I am officially an OAP, I am entitled to a free travel card here in Ireland – which I have already used quite extensively. But to my surprise, one of my clued-up friends here told me that I can also get free travel in Northern Ireland. I just have to apply for a separate card.

But the task of making the application isn’t entirely straightforward. A bit of googling revealed that you have to fill in form FTNI(1) which you can only get by calling in person to a Department of Social Protection “Intreo” office. You can’t do it online and you can’t download a pdf form beforehand.

A bit more googling told me that my nearest Intreo office was in Swords, and that it would be open today until 5pm. So I made it my objective today to walk out to Swords, find the office, and see if I could complete the form filling process.

But first – the dentist loomed. I hadn’t been for a proper check up for more than a year and over Christmas I had been receiving increasingly agitated reminder letters from the dental surgery, urging me to get checked before something catastrophic happened. Anyway, I succumbed to pressure, booked an appointment and duly had my check up this morning. Happily it went well though it always rankles to have to pay over €100 just to be told that your teeth are OK and to have some high pressure water painfully squirted onto your fragile enamel. Anyway, better to be safe than sorry.

Once that was out of the way, I had a Tesco meal deal for lunch then set out along the Broadmeadow shore path to Swords. It was quite a pleasant walk – cold, with a headwind, but mercifully dry – a nice contrast with yesterday. The Intreo office in Swords turned out to be quite easy to find, and I was there in only just over an hour.

The office was very quiet and I was seen straight away and awarded the vital form by the laconic official on the front desk. I was sent away to fill in the form, attach a passport photo (luckily I had brought one – and glue – with me) and then bring back the form for further processing. I duly did this, then my proof of identity, address and eligibility for free travel (basically my Irish free travel card) were all checked at the front desk. To my relief, the “approved” box was ticked and my form was given a great big official looking stamp, and I was told I didn’t need to do any more. The Northern Ireland Government will process my application and I “should” get my card directly from them in about six weeks. The whole application process took less than ten minutes from start to finish.

After leaving the office, I dropped into the massive SuperValu in the Pavilions shopping centre to get some dinner (it’s salad) then walked back to Malahide via the Dublin Road and Castle demesne.

Shortly after I returned to the flat, Val called to give me an update on here UK travels. She’s having a great time, by all accounts, and it was nice to see her, albeit only virtually.

The rest of the evening was spent quietly – as is the norm at the moment (I love it, by the way!). A bit more of my book, dinner, some YouTube travel vlogs, and an early night. Altogether a very satisfactory day.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The Broadmeadow Lagoon looking blue(-ish) today. Usually it’s a sort of unpleasant muddy grey, so this was a definite improvement	Looking like the eager beaver that I am

Elegant egret surveying the scene	Swords castle looking very castle-like

Well here’s a turn up for the books – Seville Oranges! (In Swords Pavilions SuperValu) What should I do?	Statuesque teasel decorating the rather inelegant verges of the Dublin Road

Dublin Mountains – probably the Two Rock area near where we were on Saturday – just visible on the horizon in this telephoto shot, all covered in snow today. It would be a fine day to be on the hills, I think