If you put me in your suitcase I can get us some free lodging!
That said, if you need help, DH's best friend married an Irish gal and has been over there about 5 years, and I can ask for recommendations.
*stuffs kari in my suitcase* Oh please do! The last time I was out of the country was to Japan on an exchange trip in high school. I've never out as an adult planning myself.
I'm hoping LivingSocial will have one of the deals I've seen off and on for staying overnight in a few castles. I'd kill for that! I don't even care where we go, lol. I'm too excited to think logically about it!
I was in Ireland for a few days when I graduated college in 2004. Don't spend a ton of time in Dublin. It's just another big city. We stayed in a hostel. We toured the Guiness Factory and toured a castle in town. We did a hop on hop off tour which was nice to get the lay of the land. We also bummed around the Temple Bar area. There is good shopping near that area. When you see tons of people wearing soccer jerseys you'll know that there is a game that night. We rode the bus over to Galway on the west coast. I wanted to stay there a lot longer. It feels like a college town and is artsy. All of the bars are non smoking which is great. I would suggest getting a Rick Steves travel book for Ireland. When I went I was with Bank of America. I believe it was Barclay's bank that was the BofA equivalent. I will try to think of more things to tell you.