City will have to shout much louder if it wants to be the Irish Barcelona

CORK needs an ambassador in Dublin. This somewhat surprising suggestion was made last week by Dr Michael Murphy, the UCC president, at the annual conference of the Cork Chamber of Commerce.

Surprising because, after all, an ambassador is somebody you send to a foreign country to represent your interests. Whatever you may believe about Cork being an independent People’s Republic, it does not exist in isolation from the rest of the Republic of Ireland.

So why did Dr Murphy fly that particular kite? Perhaps it was designed to shake an audience of the city’s business leaders out of any complacency about the future.