Welcome Adrian, I was lurking here for a good while before I was ready to start getting my brew on. If you're interested in the brewing side of things maybe you should look into doing extract or brew in a bag.
I was down in limerick a couple of weeks ago and had my first pint of ruby from white gypsy, glad to see ye have a bit of craft beer available down there!!
If you do feel like starting some home brewing ask away all the questions in the world! The lads here seem to know everything! (I don't mean that way, there is a huge amount of knowledge here to be shared!)