I've met some very nice people while I was at Ireland, some of them MVPs and quite brilliant (and good drinkers!)

Take for example, Eamon O'Tuathail , who created a small Domain Specific Language for some of the most common Gang-Of-Four design patterns out there, fully downloadable with source and all. There's a nice discussion on this package over at another one of the Irish developer's blogs - Claudio Peronne's blog.