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I've finished it, too, and found it wonderful as well. More than the stories centred on childhood, though, I was struck by those dealing with more mature characters, priesthood and death.
As an undercurrent, the two characters present in almost all the stories were religion and drink (Fish for Friday probably the pinnacle in this last respect) - this seems to fit the Irish stereotype that I perceive here in the UK, but I do wonder how truly representative of the time the drunken vignettes in the stories are.
Guests of the nation still haunts me: though it is not the first story/novel I read dealing with this issue, the precision of O'Connor in drawing perfect pictures with such few strokes is amazing to me, and of course is what makes all the difference.
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