University College Cork (UCC)

The Irish (especially the Cork accent) is beautiful but hard to understand at the beginning. It is not that stiff as the British one and not that broad as the American. All in all a good and friendly mixture. Forget about the "th" by the way. No Corkian pronounces it! Since it was kind of difficult to get to know a lot Irish students and I was dealing mostly with other international students (Spanish, Italian, French...), we had to be careful not to adopt each other's mistakes and create a kind of "foreign English". Cork's inhabitants are extremely friendly, especially the elderly. It often happened to me, that an old man or woman just started a pleasant conversation on any topic (e.g. in the supermarket, on my way to UCC etc.), unobtrusive and kind of charming.

When you travel, go places that are off the beaten path. Dublin is fine, but also go to Galway and Belfast. And definitely do the Ring of Kerry.

Keep an eye on the costs for heating and electricity and agree on fixed regulations with your landlord. Normally they don't have seperate electric meter, so sometimes they just estimate the costs, which might be good for their purses but not yours!

go to nancy spain's for beat the clock...you'll see what i mean when you get there :)