Only one problem. I do not have an Irish driver's license, let alone a license to drive a large recovery vehicle. I had an international permit, but all this does is transcribe what your US license is good for. It is good for renting a car and not much more.
The boss tells me he can insure me(somehow), and I can drive the smaller trucks. That's how it started. Within months I would be driving whatever was available, regardless of size.
So no license, no experience driving a truck in Ireland, no familiarity with most of Dublin, and I have difficulty understanding many of the local dialects. It was nothing if not stressful.
Then there's the street names. Nothing prepared me for this. Nearly all Irish streets are in Irish. If not Irish, they are in an English translated version of Irish, or both. In other words, for a Texan used to English and Spanish, I had to basically learn a new language nearly. Here is a short list of Irish street names I found interesting:
Slieve Bloom - a mountain range in Ireland
Bothar Na Breena - Road of the Breens...uh, and there's at least 2 of them in Dublin area
Chapelizod - uh.. a chapel for a lizard?
Kilmacud - Church of the son of Oda..sure.
Knocknarea - named after a mountain in Sligo
Mainaster Bhuithe - named after an old monastery thing
Clonmacnois - Clan Mac Neesh is sort of how it's pronounced.
I spent hours reading Irish words to get used to their pronunciation and spelling. I knew it grated on the dispatchers a bit all the times I've asked for a spelling of a word. When someone says "I need you to go to MacUilliam road", and you are spending time trying to find McWilliam in your gps or maps, it gets a bit frustrating for all parties involved. Now multiply that by dozens and dozens.
Let's fast forward a touch.
So, you have learned the Irish naming conventions. Good. Too bad it won't do you any good some of the time. You see, Ireland has a thing called a Leprechaun. I'm sure you've heard of it. Well, turns out in the inner city, there are a LOT of them. You've spent weeks getting used to the names, words, and Irish sounds. You've gotten used to checking what looks to be a tiny alleyway because sometimes these are actually thoroughfares to another neighborhood, town, or driveway. You've learned that Dublin does not use any standardization of street naming or numbering conventions(I.E: even numbers on one side, odd the other, Avenues being north-south while Streets are east west, etc.). 124 Bothar Na Hidaiche can be directly across from 1879. Street signs can be on poles, walls, under bushes, behind trees and brush, above shop signs, 1' off the ground or 15' up a wall. Some houses have no address on them. You've learned the GPS is mostly to get you in the general area of your target. So... you fight through all of this and you arrive in your general area only to find that most the signs have been removed(sometimes burned, vandalized, painted over etc.). Or worse, they have been swapped. At night this is a headache. During the day, it can be worse because now you have to engage the locals in an attempt to locate your address. Many of which were guilty of the sign swapping...
The locals often do not understand me. I have to try and speak in sort of a radio announcer's voice for them to understand me. Then there's the part where I'm butchering the name of the street I am attempting to find. Then there's the worst part - the actual directions. Imagine Irish street names spoken in a thick Irish accent, using vague directional nomenclature in creative ways you've never experienced previously. I couldn't either - until I experienced it first hand. I was lost. A lot.
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