‘You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver!’

She is the Chief Officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils and became famous overnight last December following a boisterous meeting of Handforth Parish Council.

Footage of the meeting went viral after Weaver removed some parish council members who had lost their cool from the online meeting.

Due to his behaviour at the fractious meeting, the Mayor of Cheshire East Council Barry Burkhill was later referred to the council’s standards committee.

Next Thursday night’s event is the Sixth Annual Public Lecture Series organised by UCC’s Centre for Local and Regional Governance (CLRG) and the theme is ‘New Forms of Democratic Local Government’.

The other speakers are Hazel Chu, Dublin’s high-profile Green Party Lord Mayor, and John Moran, former secretary general in the Department of Finance and now an advocate for a directly elected mayor for Limerick.

The CLRG Annual Report for 2020 will be launched by Professor John Cryan, UCC’s new Vice-President for Research and Innovation. Closing remarks will be delivered by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor Joe Kavanagh.

The Director of the CLRG, Dr Aodh Quinlivan is excited by the event. “The CLRG was established in February 2016 and its remit is to foster research and generate discussion about sub-national government at home and abroad. We have a brilliant line-up of speakers this year and I am sure we will have a lively conversation about local government.

“We will also present our annual under-graduate student essay award and announce our 2021 local government recognition award winner.”

CLRG2021 takes places on Thursday 15 April at 5pm. All are welcome to virtually attend this live event which will be run on Microsoft Teams. For a link to the event, email Dr Aodh Quinlivan at a.quinlivan@ucc.ie.