Any government holidays in late October and early November I need to consider ?

I'll tell you how to find out - for any country that Rick does a section on.

Go to the Explore Europe tab.

In there, click on the country you are interested in.

There is then a series of tabs down the page - Places, At A Glance, Plan, Photos, Watch, Read, Listen.

The third one is "Plan". Go there. There is a series of tabs in there relative to the country you are looking at. One of those is always "Upcoming Holidays and Festivals in xxx". Go there.

If you do that in Ireland you get https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/ireland/festivals That lists everything by date. There are several around the time you are interested in (copy and paste):-

October 4–6: Dingle Food Festival

October 15–November 3 (likely): Belfast International Arts Festival

October 24–28: Cork Guinness Jazz Festival

October 25–27 (likely): Galway Races (horse races), October Festival

October 28: October Bank Holiday, Republic of Ireland (closures)

October 31: Halloween celebrations (Europe's largest), Derry

November 11: Remembrance Sunday, Northern Ireland (two minutes of
silence at 11:00 to remember WWI dead, people wear poppies on lapels)

Hey Nigel
thanks for a new lesson I learned from you about holidays/festivals/closures for each country and dates.
Sending aloha

Oh cool. Had not seen that. Great info. Thanks. Really appreciate this.