It was still the same last summer. A bunch of very keen, very inexperienced, and very pressurised young guys trying to tell experienced contactors how to suck eggs while under constant pressure from the money people with no back up from QA. That is until something goes wrong. This happens quite regularly with the amount of gash engineers that SAL/PARC import from Bulgaria, Russia and the like who will work for £10 per hour. If you go, don't sign for a thing until you are totally sure and always go back to see that the DD's you raised have not been put in the bin due to commercial pressures. As for Shannon itself, the weather is cr@p but the people very friendly. Enjoy but check that no one has binned your defects.