ABOUT

County Cork, Ireland is a county in the south west region of Ireland.  It is located in the province of Munster and is ran by the Cork County Council—local authority.  The Mayor of Cork, Ireland is Barbara Murray and the region has about 518,128 population—latest since 2011—and is the 2nd most populous in the state.  The Region is divided into 5 constituencies.  Maryland’s history with County Cork dates all the way to the 1800’s with Fredrick Douglass. Fredrick Douglass spent several weeks in Cork, Ireland, witnessing the great famine.  This encounter opened his eyes to the true oppression of people and ever since, Maryland recently signed a Memorandum of Understand (MOU), to prolong working together and having a sister states relationship.

INITIATIVES

A MOU was signed on May 10th 2013, to help encourage business in Industry, arts, culture, education, research, health, commercial cooperation and creating exchange among both regions. Within the past, Professor, Charles Caramello, Dean of the Graduate School at Maryland visited University College Cork (UCC) in March, to advise programs in College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences. Also another Professor, Anita Maguire, Vice President for Research at UCC and Dr. David O’Connell of UCC, visited the UM campus in College Park and Baltimore to discuss research infrastructure programs, pharmaceuticals, energy, environment, food, biotech and healthcare. Both Maryland university research parks and the Maryland Business Incubator Association (MBIA) are looking for possible cooperation dealing with business and innovation opportunities at UCC.

THE LATEST

Professor O’Shea co-organized an international workshop at UCC in June of 2013 on transatlantic scientific cooperation and research from Maryland and across the European Union participated. There is growing collaboration with UCC to set up education and research programs that involves the Famine era and its effects. Also, Both UCC and UMD are developing activities that co-inside with each other, to commemorate Frederick Douglass and celebrating his imprint on both regions.

CONTACT

Dr. Patrick O’Shea
Chief Research Officer of the University of Maryland and the chairperson for the Maryland-Cork Sister State Committee

Address:
Division of Research
University of Maryland
2133 Lee Hall
College Park, MD 20742

Phone: 301-405-4175
Email: poshea@umd.edu