proof DNS is working

Probably railway's edge hasn't linked it to your deployment, even though DNS is correct.   Try removing the apex domain from your service settings and readding it ,this forces Railway's edge to rebind it.

hope @railway can fix images in comments .
Can you confirm your DNS is resolving correctly? Try running:

dig my-village.ie +short                                                                                                         

dig www.my-village.ie +short Does the apex return 76.76.21.21?

You should only be using CNAME records when using custom domains with Railway.

As certain DNS providers do not support CNAME flattening, I would highly recommend you switch over to Cloudflare's DNS service.

https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/full-setup/setup/

(Ignore this message)

i have deleted this a number of times my www. is the cname and i need to attach the next one with A, it seems to be a backend issue. I upgraded to Pro to try and resolve this but still no luck

You need to use CNAME records. You cannot use A records. Please read my message above.

i understand that. my main is a cname but the secondary address is also using mx, txt files and i cannot use cname, my understanding is if i use A and 76.76.21.21 then Railway should see that and give it an ssl. Am I to understand from you that Railway cannot do this?

i have setup the cname on original but as my-village is using mx & txt i cannot use a cname with it, thats why im stuck here i have looked it up and what i did should work but isnt thats why i am trying here, it seems to be a backend issue that cloudfare may not fix

Is the apex domain attached to the same service as www.my-village.ie, or a different one? Also who is your current DNS provider?

Hosting Ireland is the DNS provider i am currently in Cloudfare trying to fix it, I have just tried to toggle proxy on/off, it is not accepting the same service as www.my-village.ie

If you've just moved to Cloudflare, DNS propagation can take a while.  Also when you say "it is not accepting the same service" what exactly happens? Does railway give you an error when you try to  add the apex domain to the service, or does it add successfully but just not work?                                                            

just says cname record with that host already exists

Sounds like there's a duplicate cname entry. In Cloudflare, go to DNS -> Records and look for any existing record for my-village.ie (the root/apex). Delete it, then re-add it as a cname pointing to your Railway .up.railway.app domain. That should clear the conflict.   

Sounds like there's a duplicate CNAME entry. In Cloudflare, go to DNS → Records and look for any existing record for

my-village.ie (the root/apex). Delete it, then re-add it as a CNAME pointing to your Railway .up.railway.app domain. That should 

  clear the conflict.