Destroying the third largest city in Ireland (including Northern Ireland) would not exactly be a propaganda coup for the Soviet Union. Attacking neutral Ireland with nuclear weapons would automaticaly turn it towards NATO, as despite its rigid political neutrality on everything (except Britain) its a Western country and has a lot of close cultural and historical links with America. Ireland's relative geographical position on the west coast of Europe and its deap sea ports, anchorages and airports would be of great use to NATO in any operations in the Atlantic or even Arctic Oceans.
I'd say an air strike or a sabotage raid would serve a better purpose against the Bantry Bay oil terminal and Whitegate oil refinery than a nuclear strike. A well planned Spetznaz raid on these targets which are not well defended in the first place would completely knock them out. Unless any Soviets were captured it could easily be blamed on the British who with trouble brewing in Northern Ireland would be seen as the natural culprits. The IRA are also very left wing leaning and would probably even even help the Soviets in return for supplies of modern and heavy weapons. Its not hard to land arms along the south or west coast of Ireland by submarine as Ireland's naval and air patrol resources are tiny. The Germans tried it in the First World War.
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