Mary Robinson

Mary Therese Winifred Robinson ( ga, Máire Mhic Róibín; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who was the 7th president of Ireland, serving from December 1990 to September 1997, the first woman to hold this office. Prior to her election, Robinson was a senator in between 1969 and 1989, and a councilor on Dublin Corporation from 1979 to 1983. Though briefly affiliated with the Labour Party while a senator, she became the first independent candidate to win the presidency and the first not to have had the support of Fianna Fáil. Following her time as president, Robinson became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.

Robinson is widely regarded as having had a transformative effect on Ireland, having successfully campaigned on several liberalising issues as a senator and as a lawyer. Robinson was involved in the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the legalisation of contraception, the legalisation of divorce, enabling women to sit on juries, and securing the right to legal aid in civil legal cases in Ireland. She was Ireland's most popular president, at one point having a 93% approval rating among the electorate.

During her tenure as High Commissioner, she visited Tibet (1998), the first High Commissioner to have done so; she criticised Ireland's immigration policy; and criticised the use of capital punishment in the United States. She extended her intended single four-year term as High Commissioner by one year to preside over the World Conference against Racism 2001 in Durban, South Africa: the conference proved controversial due to a draft document which equated Zionism with racism. Amid rising pressure from the United States, Robinson resigned her post in September 2002. After leaving the United Nations in 2002, Robinson formed Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative, which came to a planned end at the end of 2010.

Robinson served as Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 until 2019, and as Oxfam's honorary president from 2002 until she stepped down in 2012.

She returned to live in Ireland at the end of 2010 and has since founded ''The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice.'' Robinson remains active in campaigning globally on issues of civil rights. She has been the honorary president of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation EIUC since 2005. She is a former Chair of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and is also a founding member and chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. She was a member of the European members of the Trilateral Commission.

Early life and background (1944 – 1969)

Born in Ballina, County Mayo, in 1944, she is the daughter of two medical doctors. Her father was Aubrey Bourke, of Ballina, while her mother was Tessa Bourke (''née'' O'Donnell) from Carndonagh in Inishowen, County Donegal. Mary was raised, along with her brothers, at Victoria House (Numbers 1 and 2 Victoria Terrace), her parents' residence in the centre of Ballina. Her family had links with many diverse political strands in Ireland. One ancestor was a leading activist in the Irish National Land League of Mayo and the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB); an uncle, Sir Paget John Bourke, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II after a career as a judge in the Colonial Service; while another relative was a Catholic nun. Some branches of the family were members of the Anglican Church of Ireland while others were Catholics. More distant relatives included William Liath de Burgh, Tibbot MacWalter Kittagh Bourke, and Charles Bourke.

She attended Mount Anville Secondary School in Dublin and studied law at Trinity College Dublin (where she was elected a scholar in 1965). As the Catholic Church's ban on Catholics attending Trinity was still in place at the time of Bourke's application, her parents had to first request permission from Archbishop McQuaid to allow her to attend. She was one of three women in her class in Trinity, and graduated in 1967 with first class honors. An outspoken critic of some Catholic church teachings, during her inaugural address as auditor of the Dublin University Law Society in 1967 she advocated removing the prohibition of divorce from the Irish Constitution, eliminating the ban on the use of contraceptives, and decriminalizing homosexuality and suicide. She furthered her studies at the King's Inns and was called to the Irish Bar in 1967. She was awarded a fellowship to attend Harvard Law School, receiving an LL.M in 1968.

Legal career and time in (1967 – 1990)

In 1969, aged 25, Bourke was appointed Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College. That same year, Bourke was first elected to as an independent senator. Her goals as a senator were "to open up Ireland and separate Catholic teaching from aspects of the criminal law and therefore reform the law on contraceptives, legalise homosexuality and change the constitutional ban on divorce." Her time in office is most closely associated with these issues, as well as securing the right for women to serve on juries and her involvement with the Wood Quay protests.

In 1970, she married Nicholas Robinson, with whom she had a relationship since they were law students and who was then practising as a solicitor. Together they have three children.

A result of Ireland joining the European Economic Community was that two of Robinson's key goals were met: Ireland was required to offer women in the public service equal pay to men, which came into effect in June 1973; and in July the marriage bar for women in the civil service was lifted.

In late July 1976, Robinson joined the Labour Party, though she later left the party in 1985. Whilst a member of the party, she twice ran for Dáil Éireann, but lost both races.During her time in office, Robinson won several landmark court cases. She first fought a gender-based case in the Labour Court on behalf of her husband. Under the pension scheme in place for politicians at the time, the widows of politicians were often entitled to pensions, but widowers were not. On 12 May 1979, the court ruled in her favour. In July 1979, she appeared in court on behalf of a couple who alleged that the Irish tax system was discriminatory as the tax allowances available to couples were less than double those available to single people. A court decision in their favour was made in October, but was appealed by the Irish government. The Supreme Court eventually ruled in favour of the couple in April 1980. Robinson also lost a groundbreaking case in the European Court of Justice, the first case in which the court granted legal aid to a plaintiff.

On 23 May 1989, Robinson announced that she would not be seeking re-election, and on 5 July 1989, Robinson served as a senator her last day in her career.

Presidential campaign

Background

Robinson won the Labour Party nomination over former Minister for Health Noel Browne by a 4:1 majority. She had the advantage of being the first candidate nominated for the election (and the first female), in that she could cover more meetings, public addresses and interviews. However, she refused to be drawn on specifics in case she would alienate possible support. She also received the backing of ''The Irish Times'' newspaper, and this proved hugely advantageous.

Candidates from other parties

Robinson ran against two other candidates: Austin Currie, for Fine Gael, and Brian Lenihan for Fianna Fáil. Currie was widely seen as the Fine Gael's last choice as a candidate, nominated only when no one else was available. Fianna Fáil's candidate, then Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Brian Lenihan had become popular during his three decades in politics. Like Robinson, he had delivered liberal policy reform.

At the beginning of the campaign, Lenihan was seen as the favourite to win the presidency. As the campaign proceeded, however, it became apparent that Robinson was a serious contender. Crucial to her appeal was the deep unpopularity of the Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, and the rising popularity of Dick Spring.

Robinson obtained the backing of the Workers' Party of Ireland which was strong in Dublin and Cork and was considered crucial to getting working class votes.

A transfer pact was agreed upon between Fine Gael and Labour, as both parties were normally preferred partners for each other in general elections.

Lenihan controversy

During the campaign it emerged that what Lenihan had told friends and insiders in private flatly contradicted his public statements on a controversial effort in 1982 by the opposition Fianna Fáil to pressure President Hillery into refusing a parliamentary dissolution to Garret FitzGerald, the Taoiseach at the time; Hillery had resolutely rejected the pressure.

Lenihan denied he had pressured the President but then a tape was produced of an interview he had given to a postgraduate student the previous May, in which he frankly discussed attempting to apply pressure. Lenihan claimed that "on mature recollection" he hadn't pressured the President and had been confused in his interview with the student. The issue, however, nearly led to the collapse of the government.

Under pressure from the junior coalition partner, the Progressive Democrats, Haughey sacked Lenihan as Tánaiste and Minister for Defence. Lenihan's integrity was seriously questioned. Lenihan's role in the event in 1982 seemed to imply that he could be instructed by Haughey in his duties, and that electing Lenihan was in effect empowering the controversial Haughey. In an effort to weaken Robinson, a government minister and Haughey ally, Pádraig Flynn, launched a controversial personal attack on Mary Robinson "as a wife and mother" and "having a new-found interest in her family". Flynn, even more controversially, also joked privately that Robinson would "turn the Áras '' resident's residence' into the Red Cow Inn '' pub in Dublin'". Flynn's tirade was itself attacked in response as "disgraceful" on radio by Michael McDowell, a senior member of the Progressive Democrat party which up to that point supported Lenihan's campaign. When Robinson met McDowell later in a restaurant, she quipped, "with enemies like McDowell, who needs friends?" Flynn's attack was a fatal blow to Lenihan's campaign, causing many female supporters of Lenihan to vote for Robinson in a gesture of support.

Lenihan's support evaporated, and Haughey concluded that the election was as good as lost. Haughey distanced himself from Lenihan and sacked him from the Cabinet. This had unintended consequences, as disquiet within Fianna Fáil organisation concerning Haughey's leadership increased dramatically. Many canvassers now restarted the campaign to get Lenihan elected. However, Lenihan's personal confidence was shattered and although he recovered somewhat in the polls towards the end of the campaign, it was insufficient. He won the first count with 44% of the first-preference votes — Robinson attaining 39%. However, transfers from Currie proved critical and the majority of these went — as expected — against Fianna Fáil. Lenihan became the first Fianna Fáil presidential candidate to lose a presidential election. Robinson became president, the first woman to hold the office, and the first candidate to be second on first preference votes to win the presidency.

She became the first Labour Party candidate, the first woman, and the first non-Fianna-Fáil candidate in the history of contested presidential elections to win the presidency. RTÉ broadcast her victory speech live rather than The Angelus. Her first television interview as President-elect was on the RTÉ children's television show The Den with Ray D'Arcy, puppets Zig and Zag and Dustin the Turkey, another puppet.

Presidency (1990 – 1997)

Robinson was inaugurated as the seventh President of Ireland on 3 December 1990. She proved a remarkably popular President, earning the praise of Brian Lenihan himself who, before his death five years later, said that she was a better President than he ever could have been.

In 1991, Robinson was prevented from leaving the country by Charles Haughey's government. The power of the government to prevent the president leaving the country is enshrined in Article 12.9 of the Irish constitution, which states that "the President shall not leave the State ..save with the consent of the Government". Robinson had been invited to deliver the prestigious BBC
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