Patricia O'Brien
NationalityIrish
OccupationAmbassador

Patricia O'Brien (born 8 February 1957)[1]is Ambassador of Ireland to Italy.[2] She served as Ambassador to France and to Monaco from 2017 to 2021.[3] She had served from 2013 as the Permanent Representative (Ambassador) of Ireland to the United Nations and other International Organizations at Geneva.[3]

From 2008 to 2013, she served as Legal Counsel and Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs at the United Nations, the first ever woman to hold that position.[4] In this role, she led the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs. She was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in August 2008.[1]

Prior to joining the UN, O'Brien served as Legal Adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ireland since 2003.[1] Previously, she was a Senior Legal Adviser in the Office of the Irish Attorney General and Legal Counsellor at the Irish Permanent Representation to the European Union in Brussels.[4]

O’Brien has three children.[4]

Early life

An Irish national, O'Brien was born in Brunei.[4] She spent her childhood in Nigeria, Cambodia and the Congo, and Ireland, where she attended the boarding school, Our Lady's school, in Rathnew. Her father was a barrister who worked for the Red Cross and Shell International.[4]

Education and early career

O'Brien was a lawyer at the Irish Bar from 1979 to 1988. She spent one year at the Bar of British Columbia, Canada. Between 1989 and 1992, she taught at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

She obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in legal science in 1978 and a Master of Arts degree in 1987, both from Trinity College, Dublin. She has a Barrister-at-Law (BL) from Kings Inns, Dublin (1978) and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Ottawa, Canada (1990).[4][1]

Awards

In October 2017 she received the Woman Lawyer of the Year award from the Irish Women Lawyers Association.[5]

She received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin in 2019.[6][7]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 UN press release on appointment of Patricia O'Brien
  2. ↑ "Ireland's most senior civil servant to become ambassador to London". www.irishtimes.com. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
  3. 1 2 "Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ireland". Minister Flanagan announces Government nomination of Ambassadors.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Irish Women of the World: Samantha Power and more political powerhouses". The Irish Times. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
  5. ↑ PILA bulletin 27 September 2017
  6. ↑ Patricia O'Brien and Carmel Naughton Awarded Honorary Degrees, University Times, 18 April, 2019
  7. ↑ "Registrar : Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, Ireland". www.tcd.ie. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
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