A Tralee laundry tip to the rescue

The quick & dirty

• It is possible to get laundry done in Tralee on a Sunday.
• You’ll have to do it yourself.
• You won’t need laundry detergent.
• Best to have change in the form of Euro coins (€2 denominated coins would be ideal, but €1 and 10, 20, and 50 cent pieces are fine as well).

The story

If you find yourself in Tralee, Ireland, needing to do laundry on a Sunday like I did, you’re going to quickly realize that the related businesses are not open that day. Even the nicer hotels like the Meadowlands might not have such facilities onsite and may rely upon another local business to be able to provide you, the client, that service. This means they are also potentially not going to be able to help you out. But there is another option – the single outdoor, self-serve, 24/7 launderette in town.

One thing we should straighten out first is our vocabulary. Just so you know, the word “launderette” is used where we might normally throw around the word “laundromat”.

That being said, the Revolution Wash & Dry self-service facility is located on the grounds of a Top fueling station next to Horan Centre, not far from the town’s main bus and rail stations. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything quite like it before. Two commercial washers and one dryer are situated side-by-side under the cover of a small structure that they are built into outside in the parking lot.

You initiate the process via a touchscreen, which exists in the rightmost corner of the back wall of this structure as you face the appliances. That’s also where you deposit your money. Each individual machine then has its own panel with buttons through which it is controlled. It’s all fairly simple and straightforward. See the image below or watch the accompanying video carefully for a shot of the step-by step instructions.

Owned, operated, and maintained by Dublin’s Photo-Me Ireland, the Revolution Wash & Dry’s small washer will run you €4 while the large one will run you €8. They automatically introduce their own detergent as part of the wash cycle, which means you don’t need your own. The dryer costs €2 per 15 minutes.

The payment kiosk only accepts change and €5 notes – no plastic, no other bills, and the kiosk doesn’t give change on those five spots. You can get change inside the Top from the cashier. I’d recommend exchanging your paper money for €2 denominated coins, since all the baseline prices in question are multiples of two anyway.

Or, some places in the area allow you to make a minimum purchase with a credit or debit card and add on a cashback amount to the total, which is then given to you from what they have in the till. However, you’ll just have to inquire with any given business directly as to whether they are indeed able to do that for you. Otherwise, check inside the Dunne’s next door to the Top or find an ATM.

I didn’t use the washers myself (I hand washed my stuff at my Airbnb) so I can’t attest to how well they work, but I did see the large machine in action earlier in the day, and it seemed to function as one might hope.

As for the dryer, I had a medium-sized load that I had wrung out back at my place. It consisted of two pairs of pants, some shirts, workout clothes, underwear, and socks, and the machine had it all dry in under an hour.

As functional as it all is, cheap it’s most certainly not. But hey, should you find yourself in a bind on a Sunday in Tralee, this should have you covered.