Wow, I was planning on going this fall. Thanks for the heads up.
I have to urge you not to fall into the trap of not going somewhere because of sweeping generalizations of them all hating us. I’ve lived in Ireland (in the North); I’ve traveled there extensively; I’m getting married there in a couple of months. I know the people well.
Let me tell you from personal experience - they don’t all hate us. You can certainly tell that from the number of Irish FReepers there are. The true hard-core Shinners (Sinn Fein) don’t think too highly of us. But hey, they are Marxist a-holes, so what do you care?
In all my travels there (I have been to all 32 counties on the island) and in my 2 years of living there, I never ran into any problems with someone hating me because I was American. In fact it was just the opposite. They all loved to talk to me about America, about their friends/family here, their own travels to America, etc.
You certainly will be missing out on quite an experience if you don’t find out for yourself.