The Irish call it the right side; I call it the wrong side. Truly, it’s the left side. It took me two hours to drive from the west coast of Ireland to the east, Galway to Dublin. I did a quick test drive through a small neighbourhood, swiping just one tree against the left side of the car. Ready, confident, and not a wee bit weary I headed for the real roads. Contrary to my Canadian heritage, I stuck to the speed limit. (In Canada they’re more like minimums. You won’t even get a ticket unless you’re +10 over). But this is Ireland, and my driver’s license card is somewhere in Thailand. So I stuck to the limit, 120km/h.

The only mishap was when I was approaching a toll station on the highway. I naturally reached my hand out to downshift and almost shifted the door handle. Wrong side, we shift with the left hand in Ireland.