I did the same. Received an envelope yesterday, saw the harp on it and immediately thought, "oh sugar, what have I done now!" - that says something terrible about me I'm sure but none of it's true, I promise.
I still haven't quite got to grips with it but did add up everything and came to a bit over 900 contributions in total. I know it's the averages that count but it still gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to have that many. Since I don't live in Ireland anymore, I'm not expecting a full pension anyway but it'd be nice to get something after paying in for years. Have to take a trip to the German pension advice place now and get the details added to the system here - from what I understand I won't get "credit" for what I've paid in in Ireland but I can use the number of contributions to satisfy minimum numbers of contributions here for various things.
I still haven't quite got to grips with it but did add up everything and came to a bit over 900 contributions in total. I know it's the averages that count but it still gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to have that many. Since I don't live in Ireland anymore, I'm not expecting a full pension anyway but it'd be nice to get something after paying in for years. Have to take a trip to the German pension advice place now and get the details added to the system here - from what I understand I won't get "credit" for what I've paid in in Ireland but I can use the number of contributions to satisfy minimum numbers of contributions here for various things.