driving in Ireland

Here's a thread I just saw on another board, with a very thorough range of opinions on the subject: http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/driving-on-the-lefteasy-transition-or-real-nightmare.cfm

I rented an automatic. That helped a lot. Otherwise, it didn't take too long to adjust. Hopefully your adjustment time will not be in a town. ;-)

Drove around the entire island with a clutch when 50. For the first few minutes it seems odd, then your brain realizes it's just the same except on the other side of the road, go with flow, learn on the round a bouts, then fully enjoy the beauty of Eire's back roads. Freedom! Just remember the sheep. Lots of sheep!

Went to Ireland last fall with two girlfriends. Two of us did all the driving because the third shouldn't be allowed to drive in the States, let alone in a country where she would be on the "wrong" side of the road. :) If you're a confident driver here, you should do fine there. Our experiences: We each, once, ended up on the right side of the road after turning onto a different road, but we were also watching out for each other and made immediate corrections. No big deal. Roads are narrow, but you're going so much slower that you are generally prepared to be able to meet oncoming traffic and move way over if needed. You just get used the left (your brain tends to be "on" more, repeating "stay left, stay left, stay left"). There were brushes with hedges a few times. (There's not often a shoulder on roads...just hedges and brick or stone right up to the edges!) Neither of us knows how to drive a manual, so we rented an automatic. Higher cost, but we pretty much had to do it.

We also rented a GPS. After reading lots of tips on the helpline prior to departure, we weren't going to. We were going to rely on maps. But on the flight over we got into a conversation with a girl from Dublin who had been in the US on a work related trip and she said that we should definitely rent a GPS. She said that the roads are so poorly marked...nothing like here...that we would be grateful. And we were! We tell everybody that it saved our friendship. Not only that, it saved us TIME. If we took a wrong road or exit on a roundabout then it corrected us and put us back on the right path to our destination. We ran into road work and a detour between the Cliffs of Moher and Dingle and they don't adequately mark detours like they do here. There's just a beginning detour sign and that's it. You're on your own. No other signs or route suggestions. The cost of renting a GPS was probably a lot more than buying new maps for a GPS that you may already own, but we didn't own one here that could be expanded. We also picked up and dropped off our car at the Dublin airport and then took a taxi to our downtown Dublin hotel at the end of our trip to avoid driving in the city and paying for parking. No problems in any other cities or towns we were in. (The largest were probably Derry and Galway, and we drove through Belfast on the motorway, no big deal.) Final thought: it was nice having a second driver. We did get tired easier when we had a lot of hours on the road, so it was nice to switch halfway through the day or each take a short day which also allowed the other the chance to watch the landscape, otherwise you're too focused on the road and miss everything. If I was going to the be sole driver, I'd make sure I wasn't driving more than maybe three or four hours a day, unless it was on one of the few motorways where a few hours is pretty easy.

I have driven in Ireland four times, twice with a manual car, twice with automatic. I prefer automatic (unless the price is completely outrageous) mainly because it removes one level of stress from driving on the other side of the road. It really is easy to adjust to, just be careful at corners and when pulling into driveways, like at gas stations. You will still have a tendency to go right on an unmarked drive.

I hadn't driven on the left in quite some time, then went to Australia last year. I drove slowly, kept repeating to myself, "Just stay to the left. Just stay to the left", and it all went well. Parallel parking was a bit intersting at first.

Just dropping in on this thread to ask a question myself.
How much is it in $ to rent a small automatic for 2 weeks in Ireland these days?

Kathleen, Go to autoeurope.com for the answer to your question.

Kathleen, you check rental prices at any travel consolidator, like Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia, etc. Prices change all the time (which is why I always suggest that someone book a rental as soon as they know their dates, then keep watching in case a deal comes along).