Driving in Ireland

The difficult thing about driving in Ireland is … well, all of it.  Not only are you on the opposite side of the car, but your perspective is completely different from where your lane starts and stops, but also learning the dimensions of your new car that you’re renting (or ‘hiring’ as it is referred to in Europe).  The changes are immediate, the left lane on the highway is ‘slow’ and the right lane is ‘fast’.  At an intersection, turning left is easier than turning right.

God bless the round-abouts that are all over Ireland.  We still don’t understand why these haven’t caught on in the US, but they replace stop lights and logically make much more sense.  The round-abouts would make turning at intersections much easier.

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the condition and size of some of the roads we drove on (so that I may be properly congratulated at a later point in time).  The proper highways (while filled with tolls) where rather typical in size and speed – however, we were only on the highways about 20% of the time.  The rest of the time, we were avoiding disaster left and right, in the form of cow crossings, farm equipment, picture takers (we were guilty, too), and lanes that were not properly paved to fit two lanes of opposing traffic.

Let me explain… First, let us preface this expose’ with this:  when we say ‘every time’ we really mean ‘every time’.  Okay.  Every time we were driving on the back roads of Ireland, it felt like we were driving in some sort of video game, where rules are made up as you go, Demolition Derby might be an accurate title.  Not only were local drivers unappreciative of being stuck behind lazy, scenic route taking, luscious green hills appreciating, sheep gazing tourist, they would ride your tail until you would (a) turn onto another street, (b) pull off the road or (c) assumedly fall off the mountain-side yourself. 

There weren’t a lot of places to pass cars because the country roads were extremely narrow and all seemed to be built on hills or cliffs.  We regularly went with option B, we would pull off and let cars pass and then continue on our leisurely pace – Todd time, as Nancy likes to call it.  Or, let’s just speak the truth and admit we were driving a bit timidly during our first time behind the wheel on the right side of the car, remembering to stay on the left side of the road.

Back to “every time”…

Every time there was another car coming in the opposing lane, I had to actively remind myself to stay on the left side of the road.  “Keep her in the gutter,” the grisly car attendant’s advice was fresh on my mind.  ‘What a smart guy’ I thought to myself in disbelief more than once at his level of genius for providing such wonderful advice.  Every time I passed a car in the opposing lane, it was much more similar to a game of chicken, than it was to simply driving.  I kid you not, the oncoming traffic simply didn’t budge off their ‘half’ of the road, which, to me, appeared to be about 2/3rds of the road.  To clarify, there are not lines marking the middle of street and each oncoming car simply took the space they felt like they needed.  These games of ‘chicken’ usually resulted in Nancy literally being placed in the ‘gutter’, as we would swerve off the road to escape the impending accident.  Yes, I will be glad to chauffer you around Ireland, whenever you wish.

The games of ‘chicken’ with oncoming traffic would continue throughout many of the back roads of southern Ireland.   I guess, the saving grace to all of this, was the incredible backdrop with which were able to narrowly escape these accidents.  The scenery was as picturesque as you could imagine.  The hills were a shade of green that simply doesn’t exist in America, especially in Georgia.  The hills, trail, quick moving clouds was absolutely stunning.  Even with gas costing 1.52€/liter (this would equate to a full tank of gas costing approximately 75€ or $105 – and we were driving a Ford Focus!), it wasn’t enough to dampen the fun of our trip.

Nancy and I were turning into a pretty formidable driving team.  After a steep learning curve, and a couple bumpy, but brief dips into the gutter (keeping Nancy a little too far into the gutter) we slowly but surely settled into a routine that worked very well.  Nancy was the navigator and I was the driver narrowly averting oncoming traffic, the occasional cow crossing, or tourist in the street.  Through trial and error, Nancy had developed into quite an amazing navigator.  Not only were the road signs in Ireland difficult to decipher, but the inadequate map we received nearly split in two as soon as we opened it.  (Maybe the robot did get the last laugh, after all).  Not only was the text quite small for the road signs, but predominately the signs used the Irish Gaelic language with English written smaller, underneath.  Somehow, Nancy was able to decipher these Irish hieroglyphics and tell me (usually) in the middle of the roundabout, which typically resulted in taking the complete circle a time (or two, or three).  Perhaps, a little late, but I think it just adds to our credibility as an excellent tandem.

By the end of the trip, as we were cruising back into Ireland, we felt much more confident than when we had left.  We triumphantly returned to Dublin without any (noticeable) damage to our Ford focus.  We may have over-compensated on the pre-departure checklist of visible damages before we left, just to cover our butts a run-in with an immobile Irish hill or gutter. 

To summarize, there was much more “swerving” than there was “steering”, more “confusion” than “clarity” and more questions than we had answers to, perhaps a little more stress than we had planned for, but it was an incredibly unique, albeit a little too ‘thrilling’ at times, experience, and the perfect way to explore Ireland.

This was an interesting sight the first time we came across cows on the road - it gives a whole new meaning to road congestion.

We tried to find the pot of gold, but someone else must have got there before us...