In Ireland, they drive on the left-hand side of the road. We had lived in Cambridge England for two years in the 1980s, so I knew how to drive on the left. Shifting a manual transmission with your left hand significantly increases the Degree of Difficulty quite significantly. But it has been thirty-some years since England, and I have been driving an automatic for most of this time period. And of course, our rental car had a manual transmission. Automatic transmission cars are uncommon in Europe, and they are exorbitant as rental cars in Europe. So we had a manual.
The real challenge was the narrow roads. In the mountain passes, there are narrow tunnels for the cars to drive through.
Here are a series of pictures that Susan took with her phone as we approach these narrow tunnels, here two tunnels in rapid succession. Notice how it goes from a narrow two-lane road to a narrow one-lane road.
Here is a different tunnel.
Road narrows as we approach…
Oops! Car approaching! I stop and the other driver waves thanks.
And now we can go through…
I pulled over to take this one.
My favourite (Brit spelling) thing on the roads was when you leaving a major touristic area, such as the Cliffs of Mohur or Killarney National Park, there were these road signs in English, French, and German, reminding you to Drive On Left.
