Scary Driving in Ireland

[Jeff Meade]

The first time I went to Ireland, it was in 1986. We were traveling with two other couples, and we had rented a little red Toyota van. Well, that is to say, my friend John had rented the van. For reasons known only to himself, he opted for manual transmission. So here I am, sitting on the wrong side of the car, driving on the wrong side of the road, and shifting with the wrong hand, to boot. It had been the first time I'd driven stick in years. Anyway, the van was a good idea for ferrying around six people, but it was oversized for most of the Irish roads. It seem to be roughly one and a half times wider than the average Irish country road. The scariest experience--aside from the experience most American drivers have at least once, that is to say, temporarily forgetting you're in Ireland and driving for a time on the right side--was a late-in-the-day drive through the Conor Pass on the Dingle Peninsula. We were a chatty bunch from one destination to the next--usually--but that drive was unusually quiet. Once again, the van was too wide for the road--we could hear crushed stone crumbling along the left side of the van as I drove up the hill. My wife could look out her window on the passenger side and see almost straight down the side of said hill. Yikes. Care to share your Ireland driving horror stories?

[Marianne MacDonald]

Where my family is from in Kerry on the Beara Peninsula is a very wild isolated area. When I went back a few years ago, determined to get out to my grandmother's house which I had only seen from a distance, I got directions from the local pub, found the townland entrance and voila! There I was on a four mile long boreen, two tire tracks with grass in between them. The little pathway wound around corners, up the side of a hill, over several small "bridges" with absolutely nothing on either side, leaving me just inches from driving into Kilmacologue Harbour. And that was the improved section of the lane! As I drew closer, I had to open a cow gate and ascend another even slimmer path to reach the very tip of the townland. Lo and behold, as I drew closer and saw the home which I had discovered over 15 years ago, I was confronted with a small stone causeway to cross to allow me out to the house. I've since been back a few times and when I took my friend, Lisa, there in November, it was white knuckle time for both of us when we discovered coming our way on the side of the hill, with absolutely no shoulder on either side, a fella in a pick-up truck. Well, let me tell you...they say the Irish are so friendly and accommodating! This young man (who must have picked up on the smell of panic on us) very nicely reversed my car up to a point where he could get his truck around us and go on his merry way! Never in a million years would I have been able to back the car down the boreen! And, yes, I do drive a stick when I'm in Ireland! If you want to see a picture of said boreen, it is on the picture page on this site. It's the road to Collorus...

[Denise]

My most harrowing driving experience in Ireland is proof positive that the Irish are the most hospitable people in the world. It was about 1978, and I was with my friend, Ann, and two of her friends from NBC news, where she worked at the time. We had a small car with manual transmission. I usually have no problems driving on the other side of the road, but Ann did. In fact, living in New York, she had a hard time just driving since she was seriously out of practice. We were riding late in the day along the Dingle Peninsula. It was raining, Ann was driving, and I was in the front seat telling her to slow it down a little. Too late! The car slid on a slippery patch of road. I was totally focused on the steep incline to my right (when facing death, I discovered that one is more likely to be thinking, "Oh shit" than "Dear God"). Fortunately, Ann swerved left, right through a white-washed fence in front of a little cottage. The residents came rushing out to see if we were okay, then inivited us inside where they served us tea and cakes. Somehow, I can't imagine that happening here. They weren't even concerned about the fence. "Oh, it happens all the time," they said. The car was totalled and we did the bus/train thing for the rest of our trip!

[Lisa Carbrey]

I have to laugh at Jeff's story about the van. My second time in Ireland around 1995, I was with a tour group and decided to stay on the rest of the week. I had my husband Tim, our friend Anne and her son Matt. So I talk to the travel agent running the tour, there's 4 of us, all our luggage and the guys aren't little, how about a mini van. We ended up with a Toyota Hiace van. It was huge, in addition to the driver and passenger seats it had 4 bench seats, 2 running across the van and 2 running front to back in the back of the thing. To say overkill would be the understatement of the century. So here I am, Dublin Airport telling the gang, wait here on the curb I'll be right back. Needless to say a half hour later after nurmerous wrong turns and getting stuck in a car park I had to do a very time consuming K turn out of I finally pick them up and off we head to Cork. Now this thing was a manual transmission, not normally a problem for me but left handed took some getting used to. And it was a diesel, a very SLOW diesel. I remember pulling out to pass some even slower car and Anne yelling TRUCK TRUCK TRUCK as a big lorry was bearing down on us. The guys are yelling step on it. I'd practically put my foot through the floorboard already. So I learned we needed miles to get past anyone and did a lot less passing. And as we pulled back into Shannon I'd finally managed to hit the turn signal not the windshield wiper switch!

And I can vouch for Marianne's story. I've never seen any 'road' so small. The little bridges had no side to them at all. Just a drop off into the bay! I'll also agree, there was no way I could have manuevered the car the way that nice man did. And he didn't even laugh at us, well at least not to our faces :)

[Dan]

Wasn't too bad for me. I did lose a hubcap since I kept scraping up against curbs when I went to park, but no other damage! For the first minute or two of each day of driving, I did tend to want to drift to the wrong side of the road, but my wife would snap me out of it and I'd move over again.

Overall, the Irish are much better drivers than Americans, and much more courteous. Slower moving trucks and buses would usually pull over onto a shoulder to let faster moving vehicls pass.