31 July 2015
By Bryan T. Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
The South American country of Brazil has appointed a new representative in Cork.
Mr Brendan McAuliffe who has offices at Grattan Court, Washington Street West, Cork City is the new “Honorary Consul of Brazil” with responsibility for Cork.
What is an Honorary Consul?
The part-time role of “Honorary Consul” involves a person – usually self employed, or senior within a business – taking on the task of assisting citizens of a particular foreign country who may be in need, and also promoting that country in a locality. Ireland is a small country, and an Honorary Consul can refer complex or urgent matters to a country’s full-time embassy in Dublin, which of course is only 3 hours drive North.
Surely Dublin would be the location for an Honorary Consul?
A capital city like Dublin has many foreign Embassies. Whereas a secondary city like Cork has many Consulates.
A Consulate can be headed by a Career Consul (A civil servant from the sending country) or an Honorary Consul (A resident of the receiving country, who is usually involved in a private business of his own and may not even have been in the sending country, but has some connection with it or its language).
Didn’t Cork already have a Brazillian Consulate?
According to the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs Mr McAuliffee was appointed in mid-2015. He takes over from the previous Brazilian Honorary Consul
Ms Francis Lynch of Oliver Plunkett Street who successfully served from 2008.
