Are You Brave Enough to Drive in Europe?

My daughter just finished up an ancestry class where she was able to successfully track the Rock family name back to a tiny farming town in Ireland. Cappaleitrim is approximately an hour west of Galway, and apparently it is where my great grandfather was born and raised before he and his family made his way here to Massachusetts.

I've already reached out to some people in the neighborhood who have agreed to show us where the Rock farm used to sit.

I've never been to Ireland before, but from what I can gather, it is nearly impossible to get around without a vehicle. Because of how sparsely populated the island is, there is really no public transportation outside of the cities.

This means that we'll need to rent a car. This also means that I'm going to be faced with driving on the left side of the road, or as we like to call it here in America, the wrong side of the road.

I consider myself a pretty good driver, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't just a little concerned about driving around a foreign country on the wrong side of the road.

I hate the fact that there's really no way to even "practice" driving on the left side of the road until I get there.

I think I'll be fine driving on a straight shot like Route 6, but I'm really going to have to THINK about things when it's time to take a left or a right turn. God forbid if I run into a rotary! Even crossing the street can be a challenge. American pedestrians have to fight their instincts in order to look to their right for oncoming traffic.

One thing is for sure, I'll be taking the optional rental insurance.