Besides driving on left are all rental cars steering wheel on right and left-handed gear shift too? Is it better to pay a premium for automatic trans so that shifting gears would be one less thing to worry about? Any recommended rental car websites for Ireland? TIA for advice!
I've worked in Dublin for the last 11 years, but my home is in Canada so I've been going backwards-and-forwards regularly. Rather than own a car, I have always rented - far cheaper and no hassle regarding parking at the airport etc. You can get the smaller vehicles, A and B class, for less than 10 euro a day - down to less than 5 euro a day - outside of July and August. If you are lucky, or if you are say a Hertz Gold car member, you get a free upgrade to a C class.
The two expensive items are CDW, around 12-15 euro a day, and second driver, around 10-15 euro a day. Try to avoid both of those.
Don't worry about driving on the left, but you are right in thinking of an automatic. I'm from the UK and am left-handed, so driving on the left comes naturally to me. My wife, a right-handed German, had a LOT of trouble with changing gears, and at the beginning often put it in the wrong gear or opened the window...
So if you've never driven on the left, get an automatic.
The one most difficult part for someone who has never driven on the left is negotiating a roundabout (ie traffic circle). Most North Americans are confused by them anyway, so driving one clockwise rather than anti-clockwise throws a lot of people off... The most difficult part is coming OFF the roundabout! I've seen it so many times that drivers come off into the oncoming traffic.
Yes, the roads in the countryside can be very small and the high hedges means than you don't know what's coming towards you. So keep tight to the hedges as you go around esp. left-turns - but watch out for pedestrians.
Ireland has a very high proportional death rate on its roads, around 400/annum for a population of 4M. Around 1/4 to 1/3 of those deaths are pedestrians, often walking home at night from the pub. So my advice is, if you want to drink, it is safer to drive home drunk than walk home drunk...
Finally, I've almost always rented from Hertz, as I have a Hertz Gold card. Easier to rent from a company that has its cars at the airport, and especially allows drop-offs at the airport, than a smaller one than drives you miles away to get your car. The issue here is not getting the car, it is dropping it off - you don't want the hassle of being in the middle of nowhere with bags waiting for the company's single shuttle van to take you to the airport when you're on a tight schedule.
Hertz is a little bit more expensive, but you get newer cars and far better response to problems if there is a breakdown as they have offices all over Ireland.
One final point to note, you are not allowed to drive a rental vehicle off the island. Yes, you can go to Northern Ireland, but you cannot take a car ferry to the UK or France. A bit of a pain if you are on a European tour...
