New UCC President Patrick O’Shea - ‘It’s not rocket science to fund universities’

Taking over today, Patrick O’Shea discusses student funding, the arts and science, and how UCC benefits the community. He talks to Education Correspondent Niall Murray.

He fears being likened to John Wayne’s Sean Thornton in The Quiet Man — but it is more than an accent that Patrick O’Shea brings home from the US to the president’s office at University College Cork.

After 37 years away from his alma mater, the former vice-president and head of research at University of Maryland sees little reason why some of the philosophies underlying American higher education can not be applied here.