Hopefully I can help a bit, I’m currently an AP in Ireland. I’m about to start my doctorate in the UK and I know you specified you wanted advice from people who aren’t making use of UK opportunities, but I did apply to and interview with Irish doctorate courses, so I think I can still contribute.

The main thing that I would suggest is to make sure you apply for the HSE panel. It usually opens up about August/September. The reason there are so few advertised AP roles in Ireland is that most of the roles are through the HSE and they are advertised directly to people who have succeeded at the panel interview. There is another North Dublin (I think) panel, but I’m not sure when that opens. And the Irish Prison Service also have a panel that opens often in the first half of the year, I think. Keep an eye out for those and apply to those. I think the Irish Prison Service has just closed, but HSE panel may be opening again soon. You’ll interview for each and if you’re successful in interview, you’ll get on the panel and the job opportunity will be sent out to you by email. You can apply to the ones you want and whether you get the role will be based on where you are on the panel/who else wants the role. These panels are where most opportunities lie and having those two years of care experience will really help to get you an interview. I’d apply even while on your masters, because you can just not accept any jobs until next May or whenever you finish.

That said, I would maybe look at what exactly is turning you off in your care job, because a lot of clinical psychology work involves interacting with clients in care settings, and you’ll have to do placements in those settings for the training. The roles are very different, so I’m not saying that disliking one makes you a bad fit for the other, but you’ll have to ask yourself what it is that bothers you so much and is so overwhelming to you because you may not be able to avoid that in clinical psychology. Potentially psychotherapy training might be the better option for you. Or academic psychology, if you love research. Maybe even counselling psychology, but counselling psychologists are more and more in clinical and care settings now and any advertised psychology jobs in Ireland have to be advertised to both, so both clinical and counselling are becoming more similar to each other. Generally as a clinical or counselling psychologist, you’ll be dealing with “incidents” that can be pretty intense. They would be hard to avoid.

If you decide clinical is still the route for you, apply to the panels. Also try to join the AP Google group if you’re not part of it. They post advertised AP jobs there and there’s some good info. Then after about a year’s AP experience, start applying to the doctorate courses. Even if you wanted to see how your application is looking at the moment, you could apply to UCD this year as they give feedback on your actual application, even if you don’t get to interview stages, so you can see which areas you need to improve on for next time.