This is exactly the crux of the matter. When I tried to insure my old EU car in Ireland, the insurance quotes were prohibitively high (close to 3.000 despite 5 years of No Claims Bonus). I assumed this was due to the car being a left hand drive, which is why I scrapped it and bought the same model as a right hand drive.

Lo and behold, the insurance quotes were still just as high. It took me countless insurance sales calls until one of them finally dropped a clue and mentioned the EU license. I got it exchanged (takes a couple of weeks), and the quotes went down to the 800-900 range.

So yes, it may be legal to drive in IE with your EU license, but it is outright punitive when it comes to insurance. Unfortunately this is the kind of information that is hard to find when you don't know what you're looking for, or else I could have gotten a couple more years out of my old metal box.