Driving in Ireland

So here are some pictures of driving in Ireland. I drove while we were in Belfast and Portrush. Once we hit Dublin we hailed the taxi's!

Next time I plan to drive in another country I aim to read up on their driving laws. I wondered later why the rental car company didn't have some booklet "Top 10 things to know before driving in Ireland" or something like that.

The scenery was beautiful along the way.

The road above is one of the wider roads we drove on. See the arrow in the middle of the road - I think this indicates you can pass but I never did figure out which side was allowed to pass. Their signage was strange and with hind sight being 20/20 Emily and I wish we had taken more pictures of roundabouts, street signs, narrow roads, random parking etc. I totally understand why we missed these pictures, at the time I was concentrating on driving, Emily was concentrating on keeping me on the right side of the road since it was her credit card paying for damages AND she was the navigator. So in reality, at the time we were too pre-occupied with other things to get the pictures. BUT it would have been a wonderful photo series! Maybe next time(if there is one)!
Street signs, the ones naming the streets are not on street posts they are on the side of whatever building or wall happened to be in the vacinity.

The rock wall on the right side was typical.
Most times the rock wall was shorter and was the only thing between me and the ocean.
The land curb on the left was also typical. It often felt like any minute the car would be absorbed into the side of the road.

This is the only traffic jam we experienced in Northern Ireland!

Most of the fence lines in Northern Ireland were like these. Wood posts strung with wire and hedges planted along the wire. Some hedges grew more dense giving the appearance of a hedge fence. See the hedge fence in the back ground.
A very, very, very rare side walk. As a matter of fact one afternoon as we were driving back to Belfast along the cost we stopped at a very, very, very rare parking lot to stop and enjoy a beach area. While there a nearby school let out. Several moms picked up kids - and again - no parking lots so cars were stopped long the side of the narrow road on both sides gathering children. I noticed a few moms were walking. After getting back on the road we passed a mother and son I'd noticed earlier. They were walking in the road because there was no side walk... it is scary to drive on those narrow windy roads... but walking - with a child - now that was insanely scary!
As mentioned earlier: parking - people just stopped and pulled over - oh wait the roads are so narrow there are no shoulders - so pulling over didn't happen, they just stopped when they wanted to. Throughout our trip people were just randomly stopped. We would often pass sights I might like to stop and see for a little longer or a little closer but there was no where to pull over, no parking lots... I later learned you don't need any spots you just stop - "They'll see me" is there motto... Guess it makes since. I wondered more than once where does everyone park if there is a funeral? Well, on our way home from a day trip to Galway we found out. They just park randomly everywhere... there are no parking lots so they just park the cars in the street and not just on one side of the street but on both sides. Close your eyes and imagine a narrow 2 lane road, barely wide enough for 2 cars to drive in opposite directions and not touch. The road has no shoulder, now put parked cars on both sides and people all over walking to their cars and standing in clusters visiting... I still am not sure how we got through! I was really glad I wasn't the one driving.
Hope you enjoyed this Ireland post and look forward to another!