Should I get a eurail global pass?

I find the Deutsche bahn website Is the most user-friendly way to map out routes. It will help you fill in the blanks for some of your routes.

To figure out whether a pass makes sense, you'll need to compare the price of individual tickets to the cost of the pass.

I don't know if this differs for youth passes, but for regular passes, France severely restricts the number of seats available for pass holders. Therefore, seats will be available, but you cannot use the pass to book them. Instead, you have to buy a full price ticket for that train, or change your travel plans and take a different train. So before you buy the pass, be very clear on how it works. Also reserve seats as soon as possible to deal with limitations on the number of seats available to pass holders.

You've got a lot of Gertwiller-Strasbourg runs. Travel after 8 am and its only a 5.40 euro for the 40 minute ride (Youth Discovery fare). If you want to go to Dublin from there, fly. Ryanair goes there as cheap as 36 euro from Basel. I'd say your travel could be done fairly easily for half the $1400 you are looking to shell out on a pass. Italy train fares are cheap, especially if you stick to regional trains, (there is a 10 euro reservation fee to ride the fast trains with a pass, often as much as you could buy the ticket without a pass). Eurorail pass is not accepted in the UK. You can bop around all over Germany on regional trains for 44 euro per day with a Quer durch Land ticket. Now that most European railways operate like airlines, (advance purchase, nonrefundable=cheap, spur of the moment=expensive) a little bit of advance planning can save $$.

I'm not going to crunch the numbers for you, but just so you're clear from the outset... rail passes are usually one of the single most expensive methods of traveling around Europe. You can do much better by using the methods elaborated on above.

Now... you mentioned a "student discount". Does that mean you're going to be on a semester abroad program? If so, you'll qualify for various student rate passes and discounts sold by the individual national rail companies. Do a little research on the various national rail websites (Deutsche Bahn for Germany, SNCF for France, SBB for Switzerland, etc.) Don't even think of getting ripped off by third-party resellers like Eurail or Rail Europe until you've thoroughly investigated all the options.

I don't think you will end up having a lot of long train rides. Trains and ferries to/from/within UK are not covered by Eurail passes and would be a very long route to take toward Ireland. See www.skyscanner.com for flights to/from UK and/or Ireland and also consider flights from Pisa to Strasbourg/Mulhouse/Basel. After you refine the travel plan a bit more, you could consider a pass that more closely matches your actual train needs, such as a Selectpass for 5 days of travel within 2 months (Germany-France-Switzerland-Italy) for about $380 if you are under age 26 on the date of activating the pass.