Luke, great post. I could be incredibly wrong, but I've nurtured the notion that Ireland still offers a sense of community which is missing in much of England. I wouldn't say 'the UK' because there still seem to be strong communities in Wales and Scotland, but many parts of England - particularly the urban areas - have lost a lot of their community loyalty. I'd also venture that you have a much lower crime rate than the UK overall and England in particular, and that while I noted during my brief trip to Goffs in early 2008 that the hotel I stayed at employed 'foreign' EU staff, you perhaps don't suffer quite the same amount of incursions from unemployed foreigners.
It's bad that the cherry's been knocked off the cake, and there's much talk of a loss of sovereignty, but which country operates in a self-sufficing vacuum? None. All countries are interdependent, possibly with the exception of North Korea. Otherwise, countries are either back-slapping overt pals, sneaky hand-holders under the table, or illicit lovers skulking in the shadows but still doing deals and exchanging goods, services, and money. We just didn't know how much, it seems, until recent financial disaster overtook most of the Western world. I don't think that anyone is truly sovereign or has been for a very long time. Not worth worrying about - the main thing is to live within means now and you seem to be doing a good job - and very happily - for your family in that.