Ireland: The Car Hire Saga

So, it's now just a couple of months until I head off to Ireland with Claire and Gemma. Most of the hostels are booked, we've started looking at trips and whatnot that we want to take and we've got the car hire sorted.

Except, wait a minute, is the care hire sorted? Up until a week or so ago, nope. Indeed, the care hire became, for a while at least, a bit of a saga. When we first started looking at hire cars a few months back we quickly realised that unlike New Zealand, where you can hire a car from the age of 21, Ireland won't let you hire a car until you're 25.

First day with Ead, our trusty Ford Focus in NZ

Which, you know, from a safety point of view is obviously great, but Claire is only going to be 24 when we're in Ireland. Problem the first.

So we set about finding companies that would hire to under 25s. Of which there were very few.

The first of these, Dooleys, has ludicrously expensive hire in the first place and then charges an extra ludicrously expensive charge on top for a driver under 25. Reject.

Next up, Avis, who hire at reasonable prices and while they do charge extra for a driver under 25, it's much less expensive than Dooleys. Possibility.

Then Sixt, who hire at cheaper rates than Avis but charge much more for a driver under 25. Another possibility.

Finally, after much research and emailing of companies by Gemma, Thrifty came up. These guys hire at a similar price to Avis but more importantly, according to their response to Gemma's email, don't charge extra for a driver under 25, so long as the driver in question fulfils their other criteria - namely that the driver must have been eligible to hold a licence for 6 years and actually had one for 2 years. Which Claire does fulfil. Happy times.

So we're going with Thrifty. They've been really good about getting back to Gemma about a few last bits like if they charge to take the car into Northern Ireland. From a quick scan through other companies, it seems to be a bit hit and miss - some charge a one off fee, others don't charge at all as long as you bring the car back into the Republic of Ireland, which is what we intend to do.

Let's just hope we get a car as awesome and reliable as Ead, the Ford Focus we rented in New Zealand. Look at him - so brilliant we even took a selfie with him!

Oh, by the way, I'd totally recommend About New Zealand for car hire over there - no problems at all with this little dude.

Anyways, we'll see how attached we get to the Irish car. Maybe that'll get blessed with selfies too...

We'll see.