Once you plan your flight, buy your ticket and check in, you have to plan where to stay.
Properties in Ireland are different from ones in Croatia. While in Croatia, when you say 1 room apartment you really have one room, 1 room apartment in Ireland means that you have 1 bedroom plus kitchen plus living room (in many cases as one space). But you'll always have at least one room more than in Croatia.
Some wise people steered me into looking for 2 bedroom apartment rather than single ones. Why? We'll if you rent a single bedroom apartment you can hardly share it with someone (well, some of people I contacted like to share a 2-person bed (what is in Croatia known as wedding bed) with complete stranger, but I'm not that type). But if you rent 2 bedroom apartment, you can rent a room to someone else (and if they want to share a bed, no problem). So you can divide your rent to 2-3 persons. This is particularly handy if you fail to find a job in a first month and you're running low on money.
But shouldn't it cost much more to rent? Not at all. Price is in average only 100 € more. And with average price for a rent (outside of Dublin) between 600-900 € it can be a significant thing in planing your life in Ireland.
So first thing I did was to check for apartments and since I chose a smaller town and end of student year, I found that adds for apartments stay online (no rent whatsoever) for a month or more. Nevertheless, since I wanted to be in a contact with my family, my priority were apartments with Internet. Central heating and about D status of energy consumption was also good, with as many house utilities as possible. Cable TV? Well it is just a bonus!
Then, when I found several apartments I'd really like to live in (checking neighborhood on Google maps is advised), I've contacted sales representatives, stating I'm interested party and try to organize a visit on a second day of arrival. This is good also to show that you are serious and to have a contact in case apartment is rented but new one showed on a grid.
Also, when I found out my day of departure (planing bus to Zadar, plane to Dublin, bus to Athlone, where I plan to live) I checked with Booking.com (most of travel pages will send you to it), to find B&B or a hostel (I slept in many hostels and I don't like 'em at all, so I avoided it) and book for several nights (if you didn't look for accommodation and did as I with sales representatives). It could take you week or two to find suitable accommodation, and if you don't want to throw your advance (in a first month of rental, except rent money you have to pay the same amount of money as backup option for owner so plan it!) in the wind because you decide to move somewhere else after few weeks in apartment, this is good thing to do.
So I booked a B&B for several days, arranging to see apartments I like on a first day after arrival (coming to Ireland in the evening), to be sure to rent apartment before I have to leave B&B. If you can, contact other Croatians in town or region to have a contingency plan if you have to move out and could not rent apartment on time because they can maybe help you sleep overnight or for a day or two at their place. During summer is relatively hard to find cheap accommodation in Ireland in a short notice, so plan accordingly.
