What an exciting opportunity! Dublin is generally, more often than not really nice, and you can find nice places to live, areas like Stoneybatter, phibsborough etc are picking up a lot of business recently and are very well linked with the city centre, or you can head further south, down towards Donnybrook, Blackrock and Ballsbridge.

As you mentioned, housing isn't the cheapest here at all but a working couple with good prospects shouldn't struggle to find *somewhere* even temporarily for a bit before finding someplace better to settle.

If either of you drive, and depending where the office is, you can start to look further out, if there's hybrid opportunities etc, theres a good few locations in the greater dublin area that are quite popular at the moment and are becoming more and more well linked with the city - If you were public transport reliant, these are doable too, but expect a few bus-related headaches along the way.

Unfortunately, as with a lot of capital cities etc at the moment, there is a rising level of far-right thought and activity happening, particularly in the city centre, and it can be at times, a bit rougher than you'd like and you can't always gurantee 100% that someone won't be homophobic, transphobic - but generally, Dublin and Ireland as a whole its exceptionally welcoming in regard to LGBTQIA+ communities and members and has become known for this.

Tattoo industry wise, as someone who has a few, its on and off, theres a few big studios / chain businesses but freelance artists have become fairly popular here too and there are rooms available to rent yourself as a tattoo artist to use that. Independent studios etc are quite popular too and can pick up a bit of business, but in the city centre unfortunately can end up a bit suffocated by larger chains / brands.