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One of course is the width of the wheels, which is referred to as gauge. Most of the world uses 4' 8 1/2"; Ireland, parts of Australia, Brazil and some parts of Russia use 5' 3" which is as oneonetwo says is called the "irish gauge". The other issue is the width of the carriages themselves and is called "loading gauge". In the days when Irish railway companies built their own wagons and rolling stock, the extra 6 1/2" of track gauge allowed an extra bit of space to be carried (Which still happens with some freight wagons), but at the expense of requiring specific designs for passenger stock. It was mainly in the interests of economics that CIE decided to go for stock designs that saw the introduction of the successful Mark 2 and 3. Older rolling stock was traditionally of frame and panel construction, the Mark 2 and 3 are effectively a steel tube and would prove insanely dear to adapt for 4 centimeters of seat space. All that needed to be done was to hang new bogies fitted for Irish tracks which was easy done; once this is done there is no issues with them being to wide for the UK. BTW The Irish Park Royals were reputedly the widest carriages used in the British Isles as a result of using this extra half foot.

I can't speak for the state of the Mark 3's but assuming that they are structurally sound, I should see them almost all being sold with relative ease. Some of the Mark 2's had serious issues with rusting panels at the carriage ends. This was costing almost €100k per carriage to replace in those that were fit to be repaired so they were not viable to be saved or sold on.