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Electronics

We took our new Canon SD400. With its 3x optical zoom and extremely small size it was perfect for the trip. Also, I didn't expect to use the belt loop case, but it was very helpful while wondering around. And a tip: we bought the Pelican PSP Screen Guard, cut it to size, and used it to protect the screen of the Canon. It has worked very well.

We have had our Averatec 3270 for several months now. We took it mainly to use as a place to download pictures to. The trip was hard on the notebook, the case and screen got some damage, plus we could not make much use of the wifi. In retrospect, if we could have afforded it, I would have taken something like a Palm Lifedrive.

Backpacks

My wife carried the Terra 40w.

... and I carried the REI Vagabond 2.0 Travel Pack. Both packs held up with no damage and we had way more room than we needed. We were able to take both packs as carryons until the trip back. On the way back we used the expansion zipper on my back and loaded up all of the clothes in it and took the more important stuff as a carryon with my wife's pack.

Miscellaneous

Having a pair of compact binoculars was useful, but not necessary. We found a few times on the coast of Ireland that it was nice to have the binoculars to (for instance) examine the coast of Scotland from Ireland.

The capilene underwear did a good job of drying out quickly. In Colorado we are used to clothes air drying a matter of hours, in Ireland this is NOT the case. We had clothes take more than one day to dry, even with the help of a towel warming rack.

We took an REI branded backpacking towel. The towel below is not the exact towel, but it is close. This was a VERY good decision. It dried out much faster than the washcloth we took. If you are planning to stay in hostels, it's a must have (since hostels do not provide towels).