Canadian family moving to Ireland 2023 - Best town for young outdoorsy family (2+2 small kids)?

Thankyou all so much for the suggestions/ recommendations and things to consider. I'm a researcher by nature but even so hadnt considered things such as air quality for instance, which was an insight when looking at the historical data! I had forgotten how much solid fuel such as peat is still burned in Ireland which might account for such figures in the winter in a number of cities. With that being said there are plenty of areas in Ireland where the air-quality is great year round.

Since posting originally my wife and I have looked more into the job situation in Ireland. Remote work for a Canada business would lead to a double taxation which we would then have to chase, so if we move to Ireland we would likely work for Irish businesses. The issue with this is that the tax in Ireland is high (on avg 10% higher in Ireland than Canada for us) and the salaries are lower. So that's a big issue for us as Im in my early forties, my wife in her late thirties, there's money still to be made so that we can retire comfortably and give our kids a leg-up on their lives.

Regarding schooling I was educated in an all boy catholic grammer school and my wife at a mixed-gender, non-denominational public school. We were both academic students but the school i went to had a big reputation (for nothing in my opinion) and I actually feel that she had the more rounded education and better overall experience. She was taught drama, taught to cook at school, played a wide range of sports and had male friendships and so the educated together schooling in Ireland sounds ideal for what we are looking for. I missed out on friendships with girls at school going to an all boys school and soccer was the go to sport every Phys Ed class. Regarding the religion element although both my wife and I were raised as catholics we would now consider ourselves agnostic. However we would not be against our children attending a single-religion school if we felt it had a great curriculum, facilities, ranked well in performance and most importantly if our kids seemed happy there.

Regarding weather, we have both been to Ireland during many times of the year and have experienced it first hand. The wind is the main issue, it never really stops blowing especially in the North West. But the winters are quite a bit milder than even BC and the spring comes early in Ireland relative to us. I have spent summers on the beaches of Donegal and it has been heavenly. We live East of Vancouver city and experience very hot summers (46c on occasions this year), much wetter winters than Ireland (our Novembers are biblical) and we get snow most winters (we only like snow for skiing on, we'd prefer it on the mountains!).

I do have a quick question though regarding summers in Ireland (and this segues into where im going with some of our decisions) - are summers there sunny from West to East or is there still considerable variation and rain to be had in the west during the summer? The reason I ask this is that with all of the cards laid out before us we are considering buying a holiday home in Ireland first for our summer vacations. Then having been there as a family for a few summers we could get a much better feel for everything. Should we love it after a few summers we could look at moving more permanently. So this obviously changes the original criteria and now the question becomes - Where in Ireland should we consider purchasing a summer home with a budget of 300K and lots to do for our two young boys?

In June I am considering driving down from Donegal (where I have family) all along the coast to Westport (stopping at Bundoran and Sligo). Should I continue down to parts of Kerry? Is it possible to get anything in the East with this budget? Since its a holiday home we would like the possiblity of renting or airBnB'ing it the remainder of the year....so this might be a factor to consider? Thankyou again for all of your suggestions!

D