Yeah, I just mentioned driving to point out the distances, because that's how Americans understand distance between cities. If you'd take the train to Paris why wouldn't you take the train to Dublin? (Or, well, to the ferry dock, and then the ferry to Dublin?)
While we're at it, you don't have any contact info in your profile, so I'll ask here--what made you assume I was Canadian and not American? :)
Dublin's a lot further than Paris, journey time wise. I can quite literally have breakfast at home and lunch in Paris and be back home in the evening (and have done that a few times). Travel to Dublin by rail/ferry is an entire day. And domestic rail travel in the UK is often not a pleasant experience. Even 1st class doesn't insulate you from the delays. And flying's likely cheaper too.
I dunno, based on my own friends, long roadtrips seem to be more of a Canadian thing, Americans seem to fly more :-) When I lived in the US catching the Delta service between Boston and NYC was "normal", that's only what, 3 hrs drive?
Closer to 4 hours, and American cities have rush hour twice a day 8 hours apart, and rush hour usually lasts 2-3 hours, and "no one drives in NYC, there's too much traffic" and we don't like passenger rail, so that explains all of that.
Right now I live 5 hours of driving away from the largest major city. Most of the American West is like that. 8 hours? I do that twice a month. People in built up areas on the East Coast see longer distances differently because a long distance actually gets you across three or four states, not less than one like it is out here.
Yeah, Canadian flight prices are more expensive than US domestic flight (even when going to the US), not by a huge amount but enough to dissuade frequent use.
While we're at it, you don't have any contact info in your profile, so I'll ask here--what made you assume I was Canadian and not American? :)