Driving in Ireland: A wee bit up the road and other lies

I was just beginning to relax, just beginning to loosen my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and allow myself a quick sideways glance at the stonewall-stitched patchwork of greens quilting Ireland’s countryside when KK-THUMP.

“OhmyGod,” I gasped, releasing my foot from the accelerator and peering gape-mouthed into the rearview, then driver’s side mirrors. I expected to see a body lying in the street behind me.

There wasn’t one.

Still holding my breath, I glanced at the passenger-side mirror. It took a minute for my jetlag-addled brain to realize that the spring-loaded mirror had kk-thumped shut, perhaps nudged by an errant branch from the fuchsia hedge edging the road. Phewwwwww, I resumed breathing.

Exploring back roads

My missionary-like zeal for finding every mapped castle and ancient ruin has routed me down many of Ireland’s shoulderless, one-car-wide lanes, but previously with my husband, Tom, at the wheel.

Once, while zigzagging through the purple-rocked hills of The Burren, we met another car head-on, stopping just feet from a bumper-to-bumper face-off. The other driver, nattily attired in a tweed cap and jacket, reached out his window and pulled his mirror shut. Tom mimicked his gesture, and both inched cautiously forward.

When they were window to window, the other driver turned to my husband, noted his death grip on the wheel, and smiled: “Re-laxxx,” he trilled with a nod and continued by.

Round and round the roundabout

I tried to internalize that advice when I found myself behind the wheel of a subcompact rental — an automatic, thank God — looping from Shannon to Dingle and over to Galway. Missing or cracked mirrors and scratched paint are not unusual when visitors take the right-mounted wheel and attempt to keep left and fumble with mirror-image controls while navigating Ireland’s often confusing roads.

Round-abouts left me sweating and swearing: look right, flow left, keep right, exit left. I circled each one at least twice. Signage in Irish, not English, made it all the more difficult; it took me a few go-arounds to puzzle out that An Daingean was Dingle. Then, whenever I signaled, I activated the windshield wipers and spray. Oh well, it’s better to douse and drive than to leave a body in my wake.

As I approached Dingle, the roads narrowed and suicidal sheep and the occasional cow peppered the winding lanes. The kk-thumping that resulted when I dodged too far left and grazed the greenery that hid an unforgiving stonewall was far preferable to hitting one of James Herriot’s creatures, great or small.

You can’t miss it

All these challenges were minor, however, when compared with translating Irish directions. The Irish are extremely warm, welcoming, and helpful, but they’re not keen on direction details. Despite repeatedly asking for an escape route from a roundabout, I felt like a hamster in a wheel in Tralee. The advice, always delivered with a smile, helpful gestures and a rolling brogue, invariably was “Just go straight on, you can’t miss it; it’s just a wee bit down the road.” Did “straight on” mean veering left or right at the fork? Was “wee bit” a couple hundred yards or a couple of miles?

One evening, I became lost while trying to follow a friend’s directions to his rural home in the dimming light. I panicked, and rote memory wrongly steered me right

…on a narrow dirt lane.

…on a blind hill.

…on a curve.

Ack! I yanked the wheel left. One minute later, I would have kk-thumped into a farm truck and ended up like Woody Allen in Scoop, doing my shtick on the River Styx.

I poured my tale of driving woe out over dinner. My friend seemed surprised that I managed to get lost amidst the narrow strip of rolling farmland between the main road and the sea. As I prepared to leave, he leaned into the car.

“I’ve got a shortcut you can take on the way back,” he offered sincerely. “Just follow along and bear right at the crossroads. You can’t miss it. It’s just a wee bit up the road.”