Off Grafton Street is Kehoe's (South Anne Street), a favorite watering spot; and on Duke Street are two pubs with with Ulysses connections Davy Byrne's, where Leopold Bloom ate a gorgonzola sandwich and drank a glass of wine, and Bailey's, a busy, trendy pub on the site of Leopold Bloom's house.
The watering spot is off Grafton Street.
There are still some legal hoops to jump through, but marriage would not allow the U.S. citizen to avoid a very lenghty application process for citizenship.