Australian citizen on holiday in Ireland and needing a Chinese visa

My husband and I are visiting Ireland from Australia for a period of 5 months. On our return journey to Australia we are visiting Beijing. We have our accommodation booked. We applied for our Chinese ones in Australia before we left but were told that they couldn't issue our ones 6 months before we were due in Beijing.
As we are living in Ireland at the moment as tourists can we apply for ours in Ireland.