Driving in Ireland
Drive on the Left!
Sunday
She was so pretty, the woman at the Avis counter. With red curly hair and green eyes she looked like a young Maureen O’Hara in a regulation red uniform.
“I have a US driver’s license,” I said. “Can I rent a car here?”
“Of course,” she replied with a broad smile and a thick brogue. She quickly rattled off a few prices and assured me that they had automatics on the lot.
Foggy with jetlag I struggled to understand her sentences. “I may be back tomorrow,” I said and limped across the parking lot to my hotel.
All afternoon and evening I toyed with the thought: could I really rent a car in a foreign country? And would I really be able to drive on the left side of the road? In my sleep-deprived state the idea seemed like a folly, a bubble floating before me, ephemera. Battling sleep as I watched “Friends” reruns, I dismissed the idea completely.
Surely I could entertain myself without taking my life into my hands!
Finally, at eight o’clock I could fight no longer. I surrendered to my duvet-covered bed and slept the deep, restorative, unmoving sleep of one who has not slept in 36 hours – or a lifetime.
Monday
Strangely, the idea of driving on the wrong side of the road didn’t seem that odd. As I dressed and packed up a few things for the day, I thought, “I can do this. I am capable. I can do this.” I walked over to the airport to check my email. Sifting through good and bad news, junk mail and bon voyage wishes, my confidence increased. I had one day. One day in Ireland all to myself. No demands. No agendas. And I wanted to see Ireland. According to Lonely Planet “traveling by car or motorbike is the ideal way to explore some of the best of Ireland’s landscape, especially in remote areas.” I wasn’t going to learn to ride a motorcycle on the left, so that left driving.
I looked over to the Avis desk. There she sat, my iconic lassie, looking ever the part of the Irish queen. Let’s call her “Maureen.”
“It’s a holiday. The traffic will be light,” I told myself as I approached the desk. “You needn’t go far. You don’t even have to leave the airport.”
The man standing in front of Maureen looked unhappy and distressed. As he prattled on and on I got decidedly more nervous. Can I really drive on the left? Can it be mastered before leaving the airport and endangering the lives of an entire county? But, I had an out. I could rent the car and never leave the car park, if it came to that. I could just walk away. At least that’s what I told myself.
Finally, the crabby German guy left, and Maureen turned to me. “Right then, so you’ve decided to take a car?” she said.
“Yes,” I gulped.
The rental transaction was just like at home: driver’s license, credit cards, insurance (I got the full stuff – I was only responsible for the keys and the tires). Suddenly, the car was mine.
“Do you have a map?” I asked.
“It is in the car, Love,” Maureen said. “Go out to the curb. Michael will pick you up in the shuttle and take you to your car.” She smiled. “Have a grand day!”
I grabbed the keys, smiled, and headed out to meet Michael. He pulled up in a red van. “Good morning!” he twinkled. Honestly, there is something twinkly about just about everyone I have met here. They just twinkle.
“So, have you ever driven on the left?” he asked.
“No,” I replied.
“Well, let me give you some tips that will help to keep you safe. By the time you go home again, you will have a hard time driving on the right.”
Um. Yeah, I doubt that! But tips are good!
Michael the Shuttle Driver’s Tips for Driving on the Left
“Drive slow at first.” Yeah. Like I hadn’t been planning on that one.
“Take yer time at the roundabouts.” I actually love roundabouts. But here you take them to the LEFT. “They may beep at you from behind, but better that than you take it to the right and have an accident,” Michael said wisely.
“Hug the center line.” Of course, the driver sits on the right hand side of the car. I’d forgotten about this little detail! Michael said, “At home the driver sits by the center lane, too. It is just on the other side.” This became my mantra. Hug the center line. Hug the center line.
“Here you are!” he said, pointing to a miniature red car in the lot.
That’s it? Three tips. That’s all I get? I felt a bit gypped. I mean, I thought maybe ten or twelve tips… a baker’s dozen. Just three tips?
I tried to look cool and confident as I crossed the parking lot – oh, I mean car park. The little red Nissan looked friendly and cute. It was one of those tiny, round European cars – about the size of a Mini Cooper with four doors and a back seat designed for third graders.
Nonchalantly, I sidled up to the door and unlocked it. Damn. I opened the door and found I was standing on the passenger’s side. Seriously? They were going to let me drive away with this car? And with only paying €14 in extra insurance costs? I tried to pass my mistake off as intention: I put my backpack and purse on the passenger seat and then walked around to the other side to get in.
Sitting in the driver’s seat felt oddly familiar and yet disorienting all at once. The gearshift and the parking break were on the left, but the windshield wipers and the lights were on the steering column where they belong. The radio was where it belongs – but now it was on the left, too. Fortunately, the pedals were in the same place. Until I sat down I hadn’t even considered the thought that perhaps the pedals would be different. They were not. Gas. Brake. My foot found the familiar positions.
I’d decided that if I needed to, I could just drive to the hotel parking lot and leave the car for the day. It wasn’t far. I knew I could make it that far. But if it went ok, I was going to head to a ruined abbey about 30 km away. I wrote out my route: N18 to R471 to R462 to R469 to Quin. I started the car. Hug the center line. Hug the center line. Hug the center line. And suddenly I was out of the car park and on the airport road. I was driving on the left!
I passed the hotel parking lot and made my way toward the airport exit. Large road signs lined the road:
Drive on the left!
Fasten your seat belt!
Drive on the LEFT!
No Speeding.
Drive on the LEFT!
Mortuary
DRIVE ON THE LEFT!
As I exited the airport, more red signs and flashing lights: DRIVE ON THE LEFT.
Do you think one or two tourists has had trouble with this concept?
I got to my first roundabout and pulled out – to the left. Michael had said, “If you miss your exit just keep going. Think about Chevy Chase.” I read the signs. I followed the directions. I said aloud, “Look kids! There’s Big Ben! There’s Parliament!” And somehow I ended up on my way to Quin.
While driving on the left was vaguely disorienting, it also became more and more intuitive – that is, until I came to a stop. At each intersection or stop I had to remind myself: “hug the center line.” It worked. Michael, in spirit, was my driving instructor all day.
Now, I will say, I never quite relaxed. By the time I returned to my hotel room at 11 pm, my right foot was cramped and sore from tension. And think about all of the distracting things you do when you are driving: talking on the cell phone (illegal here), eating, reading maps, putting on makeup (never!)… I would imagine this was the safest day of driving I’ve had in a long time!
My first stop was to be Quin Abbey. About 30 km from the airport, the drive took me through gorgeous Irish countryside in County Clare. I drove through the towns of Hurlers Cross and Sixmilebridge (yep, all one word). In Kilmurry, I took one of many wrong turns but finally headed northeast toward the town of Quin.
One of the delights of taking a trip like this alone is that I could follow any road sign that looked interesting. On the way to Quin I saw signs for Knappogue Castle. Now, how do you pass up a castle? Honestly. So, I began to follow the signs. Over hill and dale, literally, I drove on little country roads that were often barely one lane. Fortunately I rarely met other cars, and when I did, they or I scooted over off the road to allow the other to pass. At last I drove up the castle driveway. Frankly, it wasn’t much of a castle. But there was a nice gift shop where I bought a cheap umbrella as it had begun to rain.
Then back into the car and down the road again. Finally I came upon the hamlet of Quin, and there in the center of town I found Quin Abbey. When I was 18 and in London I fell in love with a stone church that was bombed out in WWII. I’ve always wished that we’d gotten married there – in a church but outside at the same time. Frankly, Quin Abbey is even more beautiful! Built in the twelfth century, it looks like a small Westminster Abbey – but open to the sky. The roof is gone. The windows are gone. The entire building has been abandoned for nearly 200 years, and Nature has moved in. Grass grows in the dormitory. Pigeons roost in the sanctuary. An old man and his dog look after the place as people wander through. The graveyard has crept inside as people have buried their loved ones within the walls of the abandoned nave. The spirits of monks long dead seem to linger in the cloister with its twisted stone columns and Gothic arches.
The building is simplistic beauty: the body of a great cathedral without the embellishment of hundreds of years. Instead, she wears the green of Ireland in the grasses and daisies and dandelions of spring and the blue grey of a stormy sky. Through the window frames you see the rolling fields and ivy-covered stone walls. Beneath a tree graze three beautiful cows. It sounds romanticized, but it was poetic.
Quin is a cute little village, and I ducked in to a pub for lunch during a rain shower. Then I got back into the car and continued on. I felt confident and ready to carry on. Now that I’d gotten this far, I had one goal: the Burren. The Burren is a geological freak: an area where limestone buckled and heaved into a bizarre landscape of stone. R and I had seen something on the Discovery Channel about it, and I wanted to see it in person.
On the way, though, signs for Dysert O’Dea distracted me. With a name like that how could I resist? Once again I was traipsing through the country, following signs and praying each time that I was taking the correct turns on the correct side of the road.
Dysert O’Dea is a beautiful little medieval castle with a museum inside, but the bigger attraction for me was the falling down Romanesque church. The ground floor of the castle is now a little tearoom. I sat and enjoyed a cup of tea while eavesdropping on the proprietor and her friend chatting about their grandchildren. “Traveling alone, are ye?” she asked me as I ordered my tea. “Well, God bless ye! What a modern girl ye are!” This modern girl enjoyed her sugary tea and then bought a map of the Burren before heading out.
The grounds of the castle – acres and acres – are full of Druid landmarks, medieval ruins, and a falling down church. I chose to hike out to the falling down church. The woman in the tearoom directed me to cross the little bridge and turn right. What she didn’t tell me was that I was headed through a field of cows!
And there, in the midst of the cows, was the High Cross or St. Tola’s Cross. Medieval Irish churches often had what are called “directional crosses” on their grounds. These large stone crosses, often intricately carved, marked one or more of the compass directions. This one marked due east. They are actually a hold over from the Druidic and Celtic traditions of large stones marking specific directions (think Stonehenge).
Now, they say happy cows come from California. They are wrong. Happy cows come from Ireland. As I traipsed across the field, the most beautiful cows I’d ever seen moseyed about – eating scrumptious grass and batting their long lashes at me. They munched emerald grass that looked delicious even to me and basked in the sunshine, admiring the twelve-foot tall cross in the middle of their field. I wandered through, taking photos. They didn’t pay much attention to me.
The little church features a beautiful Romanesque doorway carved with faces all across the arch. And locals have used the abandoned grounds as a cemetery for centuries, so even the inside of the roofless chapel is filled with Celtic crosses.
Bidding the cows adieu, I jumped back into the car and headed off again toward the Burren. My newly purchased and hand-drawn map, suggested a stop at the village of Kilfenora where another falling down church – this time an ancient cathedral beckoned. This cathedral still has five of what were probably six directional crosses in tact – one of which is standing in the middle of a sheep pasture. The sheep were even less interested in me than the cows were!
As I drove on deeper and deeper into the Burren the landscape changed dramatically. The Burren is a strange geological area scraped clean by glaciers and shaped by dramatic uplifting and folding of limestone beds. It is not farmable, nearly ungrazable, and full of fossils and ancient ruins. And by ancient I mean prehistoric. I pulled off the road to visit the Poulnabrone Portal Dolmen – a 5000-year-old burial site. The strange stone temple stands in the middle of a slick rock plane in a landscape that is almost otherworldly. No trees. Scrubby, mossy vegetation. And bare, rounded stone in all directions. Prehistoric residents seem to have regarded the area as spiritually significant as did the Celts and the early Christians.
Leaving the Dolmen, the sun was beginning to set. I wanted to get to the coast before dark, so I sped along. And suddenly, there was the Atlantic. I drove north a bit along the coastline, stopping at the abandoned Colcomroe Abbey, and as the last rays of sunlight disappeared I turned onto the highway and headed south toward my hotel.
Ultimately, my first day of driving in Ireland consisted of:
Two abbeys
Two castles
Two churches
One ancient gravesite
One flock of sheep
One herd of cows
One tiny red car
A lot of hugging the middle line
And no accidents
A successful day of driving on the left!
