Hopefully I’m not misunderstanding but if you’re happy to pay for Club Europe then you could buy the Aerspace or Advantage fares with EI. This would get you status in a matter of weeks, depending on how often you’re in the UK.

4 flights one way x 40 Tier Credits in Advantage = 160TCs, so 7 or 8 weeks you would have Concierge. Half that time if they are return flights. This would get you upgrade vouchers for your occasional US trips, assuming you don’t already fly J.

Plus, after only 2-3 weeks you would have silver, so would have lounge and fastrack in Dublin at least.

Lounges at outstations are obviously lacking with EI compared to others like BA. And you would still need to buy fast track and lounge for FR or others.

Another option is to purchase an Airport Club membership for DUB airport - this might make sense if you can expense it and even more so if you would be parking at the airport anyway but in general they are not great value to the consumer unless you can bounce it through an expense account.