driving larger cars in ireland

I've not rented one in Ireland (I have on the Continent) and all I can say is expect the roads to be narrow and parking spaces to be small. I noticed in Ireland that people parallel park facing both ways on the sides of the road.

For comfort you'll need a minivan.

Now, in some parts of Eire the driver maybe challenged on the wee roads ( somewhere like the Gap of Dunloe) although its definitely doable. I did it a larger than I liked 4 door.

Same with Slea Head but if tour busses can do it ( and they do) then a mini van can make it as well.

Use Google maps satellite street view to plan your routes to wherever you are traveling.

Claudia is spot on. Our last trip we needed a fairly large SUV and did not have any problems. Agree it is not a mini van but on some very small rural roads, if a car is coming towards you, you can just pull over to the side, even on Slea Head drive.

We just returned from Ireland this morning after 18 days-it's a great country and we had a great trip. We rented a small Nissan and were able to return it with mirrors, tires and paint intact. We drove the Ring of Kerry, the Dingle Peninsula and the Burren as well as other places. I will honestly tell you you would be insane to drive a seven passenger vehicle on any of these roads if you are a novice to driving in Ireland. Buses, trucks and even cars are routinely well over the center line-and stay that way-leaving you to slow down, hit the shoulder, look for a pullout or just pray. I am a very good driver with a lot of spacial sense, but it was tense.

Almost every couple we met who rented a car had lost a mirror or blown a tire. If you really need that big a vehicle, hire a car and driver. Whatever you rent, you would be happily advised to purchase all the insurance they offer.

Two years ago, my mom, brother and SIL, sister and BIL, and I spent two weeks driving around Ireland in what looked like a VW minibus. It was a manual transmission that we rented from Dan Dooley, picking up and dropping off at Dublin airport. The only problem we had was when we drove through a small town at mid-afternoon, just as school got out, with kids cutting back and forth across the main road, which had cars parked on both sides of the street. Sis was keeping an eye on the kids and didn't notice that one of the parkers had left her car two feet off of the curb, way outside the marked lines for parallel parking, and she side-swiped it. Crumpled up the left side of our car a bit, scraped the other car, but we had bought all the insurance available and we were only out 100€ for deductible. Since we were able to continue with the same car, the accident didn't do anything other than draw attention for the rest of the trip. We did have a fun Garda (cop) who ended up teaching us how to say four letter words with an Irish accent!

The car itself fit all six of us and our luggage no problem.

We drove a full size van around for two weeks. We had 6 of us and was very comfortable. It took about one day of driving to get comfortable but after that we went everywhere with that thing and didn't put a scratch on it. We did see vans with the mirrors knocked off. You really need one person driving and another person navigating. The driver needs to,just drive and if you make a wrong turn don't worry about it, just catch the next roundabout and head back.
It was very driveable and not an issue and we really got in some tight spots.

Just don't put the wrong fuel in it. The nozzles are different colors. We ended up,with diesel in ours and spent one afternoon at a shop while they cleaned it out.