Day 1: Driving on the Wrong (LEFT) Side of the Road in Ireland (Guest Post)

My friend, Ann, agreed to write up posts about our trip to Ireland together when I was lamenting how far behind I was on the blog.  She wrote an intro and day one of our trip here.

I met Kelle through our homeschooling group in Maryland. I first met her while she was pregnant with Drew and became friends with her the following year when we both joined a new co-op that was starting. Our friendship developed over the next four years and my kids (now 14, 12, and 9) became fast friends with her crew. 

One day when our co-op was meeting at Kelle’s house I jokingly said we should buy their house when they moved to their next assignment. What was said in jest happened as we ended up buying their house as we had outgrown our townhouse.

One of the neatest stories of our friendship was that I took her to the hospital and was there when Bobby was born, as Brian was racing back from Richmond. I even got to cut the cord. Pretty memorable day in my life!

They have stayed with us during two of their visits to the US since moving to Germany.  You’d think having a family with 6 kids staying with you would be hard work.  But  my husband commented both times how great it was having them here with all the kids played together and how much he loved having the house full of kids and laughter.

I convinced my husband that we needed to take advantage of their assignment in Germany and maybe they’d like to meet us in Ireland.

Once plans were made we were able to visit with them in Germany and Ireland for what my family says is the best trip we’ve ever taken!

Ann's Family at the Airport

We left out of a small airport in Germany and arrived in Ireland at Kerry airport, which was an even smaller airport. The benefit of flying into a smaller airport, versus into a large city like Dublin, was that Kelle and Brian had an easier transition to driving on the wrong side of the road. Or at least it seemed that way from the passenger seat. Brian had the added challenge of driving a stick shift so he had to change gears with his left hand.  Both of them did a fabulous job managing the wrong side of the road, and the often very narrow windy roads of Ireland. I commented at one point, when we were driving through a desolate area with an unnecessarily windy road, that the men paving the route must have had a few too many pints before they headed to work.

Yes, this is a two lane road!

The is the boys' car passing a car coming the other way near a driveway on the narrow roads.  This was by far not the closest pass we had.  

We enjoyed the beautiful landscape in western Ireland as we headed north through County Clare to our rental, the Lisheen House in Balleyvaughen. We arrived at Kerry mid-afternoon and some of the older kid had asked for us to stop for something to eat, but there aren’t a lot of convenience stores to just swing by and pick up some snacks, or there weren’t a lot of options on the route we were on.  We placated their hunger with pretty much all the snacks that Kelle and I had in our bags so we could make it to the Lisheen House by 7pm.

Let me mention that there was a boy’s car and a girl’s car. The dads said their car was very quiet. Kelle and I couldn’t’ say the same about our car.  The 12 year old and almost 11 year old boys had to sit in the middle row of the boys 7-seater as their legs were too long to fit in the back of the Nissan X-Trail.  Thankfully the girls had a GM car and the 13, 12, 11, and 9 year old girls were able to rotate around taking turns sitting in the back seat, or in the middle seat with Bob, the lone male in the girl car. The kids were all wonderful travelers the entire trip, especially that first day as we depleted all of our snacks and ran out of water. When we stocked up on food the next morning we kept several liters of water in our car the rest of the trip.

This must have been before Bob got in his seat.

The Lisheen House was beautiful! I wish we had a day or two to just stay there, sit in the upper room or back porch and read a book while enjoying the view. The kids loved the back yard as there was plenty of room to run and lots of snails and slugs in the garden the evening we arrived. We never did have time to play parents vs kids capture the flag the kids wanted to play.

The Lisheen House

A Really Amazing Kitchen!!!

Backyard, just waiting for a game of Capture the Flag

Judah in the Lisheen house.

About 500 feet north of our house was what looked like a bay, but it was actually part of the Atlantic Ocean/Irish Sea. We ate dinner at a seafood house, right on the water, which thankfully had non-seafood options for the several members of our party who don’t love seafood. They sat us down at two tables inside the pub, as it had more of the feel of a pub than a restaurant. After we’d been seated more than several minutes I noticed that a table that arrived after us already had drinks and a bread basket. One of my favorite quotes of the whole trip was Kelle turning to Keven and I saying, “Oh, by the way, we often don’t get very good service."  The waiter did eventually come and Keven and Brian started with a necessary pint of Guinness while Kelle and I enjoyed a lighter fruit beer. The food was all delicious, from the seafood to the lamb, goose, and chicken. Fish and chips would have to wait until another day.

The sun didn’t set until close to 10pm at the end of May. Kelle headed home to put the three youngest to bed while the older kids played in the light of the sunset at the waters edge before we headed home. The dads loved the convenient location of the seafood house as they headed back there for some more beers, darts, and conversation after the rest of the kids went to bed.

(We'll have more pictures tomorrow.  For some reason we didn't get many from the first day.)