One week before Christmas, I called Frank Brennan, the CEO of the Cork enterprise hub Republic of Work, to pick his brains on the model developed for this type of location by Station F in Paris (more on this in the coming days).  Usually, Brennan is always available for a chat (“I could talk to the walls,” as he puts it himself), but this time, he was apologetic. He was in the middle of a deal and could not make time to talk to me, he said. I wrongly assumed he was helping with a fundraise by one of the…