So glad to hear you enjoyed your trip here. You certainly did a lot of travelling. Patchwork and quilting is very popular over here but the shops are hard to find, some are in private houses. Here's a link to a list of shops that is on the site for the Eastern Branch of the Irish Patchwork Society,
http://www.easternbranch-ips.com/shops/.
Here is the main link to the Irish patchwork society which includes a link for people visiting Ireland. It lists all the different branches that are around the country and, as far as I know, visitors are very welcome to attend the meetings, certainly in the Eastern branch in Dublin,
http://www.irishpatchwork.ie/index.html