To me, these seem like extra rules that make speaking irish correctly much more complicated with no added benefit on clarity of communicating idea's. They are very common in "Standardized Irish", but I was wondering if they are also always there in Cork Irish?

How important are getting these rules grammer rules correct? Would people in Ireland still be able to understand me if I just ignored them? Thanks in advance!!

They are non-negotiable parts of the languages used in all dialects and in many Celtic languages.

They are more 'simplified' in 'Standard Irish' in my opinion. Cork Irish, and indeed every variant of Irish uses them.

I strongly suggest against avoiding them. If you avoid them, you won't be speaking Irish. If you are studying the language, study the language. You can't pick and choose the bits you like and don't like.

They are not that hard, they're just not something you're familiar with yet.

Yes, absolutely right. It is not correct Irish to avoid the consonant mutations, and they often make a distinction that cannot be made another way. A mhac - his son. A mac - her son or their son.

I'll chime in to agree with the other two. Not only are initial mutations an integral part of Irish, regardless of dialect, but they serve a vital semantic role in many grammatical contexts. While their application may vary between dialects, and some situations may occur where a speaker of Irish will be able to understand what you intended to say if you mix up your mutations, in other cases it is not possible to tell what you are trying to express unless you get the mutations correct.

Aside from the utility of initial mutations as grammatical features, it's worth noting that they also happen to be a feature shared by all surviving Celtic languages. This is something that makes these languages unique among other Indo-European and world languages. They should be appreciated not merely for their utility, but because they are a wonderful example of the variety which can crop up in languages. In this case, they represent a common solution among Celtic languages to the lexical phenomenon known as apocope. While many closely related languages, many of them situated closeby geographically also, also experienced the loss of final Indo-European syllables, only the Celtic languages developed initial mutations as a result. This is something to be admired, not ignored.

Anyhow, why Cork Irish? Most people link their learning to their background. E.g. if you have Galway ancestors, then maybe Mícheál Ó Siadhial's Learning Irish is the textbook for you.

Because somebody (either you or ADE) linked me a Bible in Cork English that you said was really good. My last name is Vaughan, not sure what part of Ireland we are from.