RTÉ Washington correspondent, Brian O’Donovan is set to deliver the 22nd Annual Philip Monahan Memorial Lecture at UCC on Tuesday, March 23.

The lecture will take place online at 7.00pm, and is open to all.

The public lecture series celebrates the memory of Philip Monahan. Monahan was Ireland’s first local authority manager and he served as city commissioner and then city manager in Cork from 1924-1959.

Monahan set the highest standards of probity and integrity in public administration and he defined the role of city manager and the practice of public management in Ireland.

The lecture series, inaugurated in 1997, has attracted some eminent speakers including John Hume, Mary McAleese, John Bercow and Peter McVerry.

The title of this year’s lecture by Brian O’Donovan is ‘Divided States of America’ and he will look back at the tumultuous past year in the US. He will analyse the events leading up to the 2020 presidential election and the storming of the Capitol Building; he will also assess the challenges facing president Joe Biden.

The underlying theme will be one of division — political divides, racial divides and even divides over the wearing of face masks. 

The event will be opened by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor Joe Kavanagh, and the guest speaker will be introduced by the interim president of UCC, Professor John O’Halloran.

The event’s organiser, Dr Aodh Quinlivan, of UCC’s Department of Government and Politics said: “Even though we cannot meet in person at UCC this year we were determined to continue with the annual Monahan Lecture and I think that Brian’s lecture will be extremely interesting and relevant.

“We will also be announcing our student and graduate of the year and the winner of the Patrick O’Sullivan Essay Competition. Patrick was a student of ours who tragically died on March 3, 2001, and we remember him through this annual competition.”

• For anyone interested in attending, e-mail Aodh Quinlivan at a.quinlivan@ucc.ie for the link to this online event.