Our rental was a standard transmission, which my hubby had no issues with. (This was his second two-week stint of driving over there on the opposite side of the road/car.)

As for the M50 tolls, Thrifty has a reader card in their vehicles and we were charged for each individually for each of the three trips through it, rather than one lump sum charge of 3x. With Thrifty, you do not have the option to pay on your own. Of course, they get you for an administrative fee for the processing of the toll payments on your behalf.

As for areas we enjoyed the most, all of the OPW Heritage sites were interesting and educational. We loved Cobh and the Titanic history there, as well as the Aran Islands (we did an overnight on Inis Mor). The timeshare we had in County Galway (Connemara Country Cottages) was very nice and in a great location for exploring that area.

In total we were in Ireland for 15 days so we also stayed in a self-catering cottage for 5 nights, a castle for 2 and a B&B outside of Dublin for 2.

I did a lot of writing and photographing for IgoUgo.com. My journals, reviews and photos may be found here.

I'm sure you'll have a great time!