Professor Collins takes the stage: 17 June 2008

This morning at the painfully early hour of ten we were treated to a lecture by a professor of government from the University College of Cork. His main topics were Ireland’s political history and the Lisbon treaty. I was not at all familiar with either of these topics so his entire rambling lecture was relatively interesting. Professor Collins did a good job of illustrating how exactly the Irish government works. My favorite quote of his was something along the lines of, “The British believe the Irish government is very similar to theirs and the Americans believe it is very similar to theirs. But if you wanted to think about who it is more similar too in a geographic sense, than Ireland would be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean somewhere, directly in between America and Britain.” That quote really summed up his discussion of what the Irish government was like for me. I am really glad the Katie asked Professor Collins about the Lisbon treaty because we have been seeing so many signs up around town and we have been guessing as to what they meant, needless to say, none of us was even close in our guesses to what the treaty actually entailed. The discussion of the treaty was not very useful but it did clarify how the European Union works because the Lisbon treaty is an EU treaty.