The soggy season has been ideal for annoying pests like midges, which hate dry conditions, according to Dr Úna Fitzpatrick, an ecologist with the National Biodiversity Data Centre at the Waterford Institute of Technology.
Horseflies, mosquitoes and ticks are out in force.
The more benign dragonflies, butterflies, whirleygigs, mayflies and ladybirds also emerge in the warmer months.
Like the rest of the country, the Bog of Allen Nature Centre in Rathangan is enduring summer swarms of insects.
"The shouts and screams here yesterday were unbelievable," said Dr Catherine O'Connell, chief executive of the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, of children's reaction to the wriggling larvae of the ferocious great diving beetle.
"It is a pretty big yoke all right - about the size of your thumb and quite impressive," said Dr O'Connell of the beetle larvae, which intrepid kids had discovered during an exploration of the 32-hectare bog. The bog includes a museum and boardwalk.
The great diving beetle, which flies from pool to pool in the bog is the top predator, she said.
Her personal bugbear is the tick, which has become common from May and hangs on blades of grass waiting to climb up and burrow into flesh.
"I hate them, and I'm very prone to them," said Dr O'Connell of the ticks who find their way through her sandals.
"I've a hairy husband and he never gets affected by them, but I'm always picking them up."
There's something else to look out for, she says: large swarms of flying ants.
"These fertile male and female ants take part in a nuptial swarming flight over the course of a few days. Mating takes place in the air, and like queen bumblebees, the female then searches for a nest site where she stays for the winter," said Dr Fitzpatrick.
Dr O'Connell added: "Midges are another one that can make you have to abandon your work when they swarm."
Galway resident Simon Lambert can vouch for that. He was recently forced to abandon a camping trip when his tent site was overrun by the little biters.
"They just swarmed us," said Lambert, an Australian who thought he'd have nothing to fear from the Irish wildlife - until he met the midges. Although he has been stung by jellyfish while swimming at Salthill, he admits he still feels safer than when he is in his native Canberra.
"I've lost a dog to a snake, and we regularly kill brown snakes along our vineyard." Since the drought they are attracted by the irrigation. Spiders, too, are a problem. "We have funnelwebs and redback spiders which can kill you," he said. "Maybe Ireland isn't so bad after all."
Dr O'Connell said besieged campers like him should try waving around the native bog myrtle. It can be a natural deterrent to insects, though it may not frighten the great diving beetle.
