Dubai Stu & Kgmm77 - thank you for the info. I will get a new SIM in Dublin. And now the question of which carrier. 3 seems to have a great package included w/ a 20Euro top up for prepaid that includes text & data. But do they have good coverage?

There's not much data info for Vodaphone & O2 but I assume they are the more established carrier and cover well if 3G isn't available in an area, it switches to Edge, one would think at least.

What would you recommend?