@toothless howdy!

I’m a US rail fan who’s done lots of niche research into old train stations, old railways, and old rolling stock.

Now… Photos from the 80’s itself?

That’s gonna be difficult to find online, but no doubt photos exist *somewhere*. The question is, how devoted are you to locating the photos that exist? Tl;dr you’ll likely need to talk to some people and hope they have enough goodwill to scan some photos.

I did find this Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/metromadme/albums/72157633512080867/ but the photos are more recent; no idea if any affiliation with Iarnród Éireann either. I don’t know if you found this already or not. But I am assuming nothing.

Most transit railroads have an archive. I’d contact Iarnród Éireann, the successor to CIE. Be gentle, these people are bureaucrats, and their archive is more a legal one in nature.

The Ireland national archives might have some, but it’s gonna be “here’s a bunch of assorted photos from 80’s trains, Godspeed.”

That failing, trying the Irish Railroad Society might work. Railroad societies everywhere often keep this sorta thing, and most collections from before the 00’s have not been digitised. Ask nicely and they might upload some scans for you if they got any. I have no personal experience with this rail society, but having talked to US rail societies, they’re the ones who usually keep this sorta thing, and the US ones are super happy to help. https://irrs.ie/

I would also contact local libraries because they know more where to look, often have local archives, some might even scan photos for you if you’re nice. They might be able to help point you to media from the era that has shots of the train interior (DART was a BFD in the 80’s). Also the national library of Ireland, look up “DART inauguration” or “suburban railway electrification.” You might be able to find some news articles with interior shots. Though local study libraries are more likely to have it (you’ll need to ask them nicely to digitise the photos).

Good luck.