I agree that Grace O'Malley/Granuaile was a fascinating woman (I attempted to write a paper on her in college comparing her to Cleopatra; the analogies were fascinating but it was kind of turning into just pointing out coincidences so I had to abandon it), but I'm not sure she's who I'd choose to lead Ireland. I'd build Ireland as a culture/faith civ, and a pirate queen doesn't really fit into that. I'd also want to emphasize Early Medieval Ireland, which would put Granuaile awfully late. IMO Brian Boru is the best choice. Niall of the Nine Hostages is in the Tomyris/Dido category of semi-mythical but just historical enough to maybe squeeze in. Not every civ needs a female ruler, and I'm not sure Ireland would be my top pick for it--but then again, neither would France yet here we are.
I associate the "science from Great Works of Writing" with cuneiform, and Ebla and Mari were other Eastern Semitic cities associated with early writing. (Eblaite used to be considered a dialect of Akkadian but is now considered a sister language.) The Eblaite kingdom was regionally important but is unlikely to ever become a civ, and Mari was a waypoint between Ebla and Sumer/Babylon. I'd lean towards Ebla over Mari because, if an Assyrian civilization were later made, Mari ought to be on its city list. (If it weren't already on Phoenicia's city list, I would have proposed Ugarit. IMO it should have been a city-state in the first place; Ugarit was halfway between Phoenicia's and the Hittites' spheres of influence, and they were Amorites, not Phoenicians. There were plenty of authentically Phoenician cities they could have chosen instead.)Thanks. I don't know as much about Near East cities as you, so Nineveh was the only one I could think of (because of Ashurbanipal's library) since I don't expect both to get in the game.