Claiming "Irish associations" based on connection to someone recently naturalised themselves

I've read about the discretionary 3 years residence period for naturalisation of people with a family connection to an Irish citizen. Is this still normally granted in cases where the Irish citizen was only recently naturalised themselves? Seems to be at odds with the spirit of the exception, but I haven't seen it ruled out.

In my case the Irish citizen would be my wife, if she stays in Ireland continuously for 5 years and is then naturalised, but I do a 9 month internship overseas before coming back to Ireland. So she would reach the 5 years qualifying point 9 months before I do. We are both British with no other family connection to Ireland.