(14 photos) This site contains photos from three trips to Ireland, one in 1999 and two in 2009.
I was impressed by the Irish people. Without exception, every person I met there was friendly and many of them, especially the cab drivers, seemed proud of their city and country. They were warm to me regardless of how dishevelled I looked (the same is definitely not true in Boston or Paris). One afternoon I was walking along the street deep in thought, probably with a furrowed brow, and a passerby said "Cheer up!" I was complaining about the weather on one drizzly day that hadn't a patch of blue in the sky, but the the morning news reporter said that it was a great day because at least it wasn't raining!
Ireland is a very small country, with only 3.5 million people (there are 11 million Irish people living abroad). Ireland has a history of encouraging and respecting its writers, with many of them unafraid to stretch the boundaries of literature (e.g., James Joyce).
Your pictures of Dublin bring back a lot of memories, but then again I was just there in December.