Those are good calls.
I know Southern Ireland very well, I'm over there a lot as my family is there. I spend a lot of time around Connemara and County Clare, both of which have some fun roads. But watch out for the sheep!
They do have some fun roads there - I know them well, I have a house in North Clare and was back for Christmas. I've never taken the GTS over though. Prefer something like a 4x4 where I can see over the walls. It's not so much the sheep (or even the badgers) that would worry me it is the other road users.
Without stereotyping, the standard of driving there is atrocious - name me one other country where you can drive solo to your driving test, fail, and drive home solo after which you can carry on driving solo forever. There is little incentive to learn proper skills and it shows. Add to that the number of tractors on the wrong side of the road, oblivious; the boys that take their 'racers' into Galway once a month, coming home full of cheap whisky and whatever they could stick up their noses on a night out, showing off to the girls on the way home round country lanes.
There is a good reason why Ireland has one of the highest road (and teenage) mortality rates which have just gone up again for the umpteenth year - it is frankly carnage.
Okay, sorry to harp on (no pun intended) but I want to see the SM group back from their fun in one piece.
On the upside, if you take the overnight ferry from Holyhead and hit the new motorway to the West at 3am on a Sunday morning you won't see another car, on perfect two lane Tarmac, for two hours - then you can test that top speed!!!
One day!