Biography of Mary Robinson

Writing Peace: The National Archives of the UK (TNA)

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ROBINSON, MRS MARY

President of Republic of Ireland.

Born 1944, Ballina, Co Mayo (Mayo Bourke).

Educated Convent of the Sacred Heart, Mount Anville, Dublin; Trinity College, Dublin (MA in law); King's Inns, Dublin (LL B); Harvard University Law School (LL M).

Became the youngest Professor of Law in Ireland at the age of 25 at Trinity College Dublin. Was also elected in 1969 to the Senate from Trinity College (as an Independent). Took the Labour whip in 1976 and stood (unsuccessfully) for the Dail in 1977 and 1981. Resigned from the Labour Party in 1985 over the Anglo-Irish Agreement, on the grounds that the Unionists should have been consulted about it as were the SDLP; did not stand for re-election to the Senate in 1987.

As a Senator, she introduced in 1970 the first Bill to legalise contraceptives; she brought forward a Bill which challenged the then prohibition on people in mixed religious marriages from adopting children; and, in 1973, in another attempt to legalise contraception, she successfully secured the first full parliamentary debate on the subject. She was prominent in advocating the ending of the constitutional ban on divorce and in opposing the constitutional amendment banning abortion in the referenda of 1984 and 1986.

As a lawyer, she established in 1975 the right to free legal aid by taking a case successfully to the European Court of Human Rights. She secured the right of women to sit on juries. Her last notable success, in 1989, was to establish that Irish laws criminalising homosexual acts were contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Elected President in 1990, she was nominated by Labour and endorsed by the Workers' Party and the Green Party, but her appeal went well beyond their constituencies. Promised an activist Presidency, as "a resource for the people".

Married (1970) Nick Robinson, a Protestant solicitor. They have one daughter and two sons.

Resource Collections

Writing Peace: The National Archives of the UK (TNA)

Biography of Mary Robinson

Wednesday, 01 January 1992

Writing Peace: The National Archives of the UK (TNA)