Rebelman,
Tried to watch a GAA match at the weekend too overseas on my pc, only to find that the service was restricted to the "island of Ireland" A bit of cheek in my opinion. They say it's to do with copyright. I thought webcasts were to facilitate viewers and ex-pats abroad who didn't have access any otherway. So someone on a pc in Cork or Donegal can watch their football or hurling on the net but an ex-pat abroad can't? Crazy waste of tax payers and license fee.
As regards needing a tv license to watch, I'm not aware of that requirement (I'm open to correction!) Also, N. Ireland residents pay nothing to RTE yet they can access the service.
Using a proxy host did occur to me at the time, as I've used them in the past. You would need an Irish proxy host as Bankrupt pointed out. It's easy to set up and it basically "masks" your pc's real IP address with the hosts one,thereby fooling RTE's servers into thinking your pc is logged on in Ireland rather than abroad.