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                                                                                PROFILE, Page 62

Symbol of The New Ireland

President Mary Robinson has recharged the spirit of her fractious
nation and helped make it part of a modern Europe

By MARTHA DUFFY


    When Mary Robinson was a young girl just out of convent
school, her family sent her off to Paris for a year of finishing
school. It was there, as an impressionable 17-year-old, that she
came to an important realization about her native Ireland. Its
historic insularity did not serve to protect its culture, but
instead helped keep it in the shadow of the English. "A country
like France had such a sense of itself that it could never be
diluted," she recalls. "You don't homogenize a culture, you
enrich it by diversity of contacts." Only by becoming fully a
part of Europe, by broadening its contacts rather than
restricting them, could Ireland come into its own. "My view then
and now is that there were psychological and cultural reasons
why Ireland could be liberated by Europe, allowed to refine its
identity within the context of cultural diversity."

    Robinson went on to become one of Ireland's foremost
international lawyers and a politician known for her secular
sophistication. Now as the nation's first woman President, she
has become a symbol of its European aspirations, as reflected
in its resounding vote of approval last week for the Maastricht
treaty and integration into the new European Union. But most
important, given the largely ceremonial nature of her office,
she has become a symbol of what made that vote possible:
Ireland's renewed self-confidence and national pride.

    It is midday in Phoenix Park, Dublin, site of the
President's house, or Aras an Uachtarain, as the Irish call it.
A group of 40 people, most of them fit, elderly, dressed in
practical tweeds, have gathered in a gracious 19th century
drawing room filled with pale sunlight. They are members of the
National Association of Tenants' Organizations, a volunteer
group, and have been invited by Robinson for a tour and tea.
After a few minutes, a tall, handsome woman, dressed in a bright
suit that could be described as benign dress for success, enters
and, without fanfare, begins her talk.

    She is a natural. Speaking in a vibrant alto voice, she
recalls the mansion's past, the various additions made through
the centuries, some of them amusingly botched. Seamlessly, she
shifts to her family's life within its walls, how her three
children enjoy biking through Phoenix Park, how she came to put
a light in the family kitchen window -- the Irish symbolic
welcome home to those who have emigrated. When the session is
over and the President has slipped away as quietly as she
arrived, everyone is beaming. A white-haired lady sighs with
satisfaction and breathes, "Isn't she someone to be proud of?"

    This is a good-news story. There aren't very many of them
in politics these days, but the saga of Mary Robinson is the
real thing. Irish public life is the stuff of tragedy or bad
jokes. The country is haunted by the division between north and
south, by the grim persistence of terrorism, by divisive
personal issues such as birth control and abortion, and by
recurrent scandals. Charles Haughey, the Taoiseach (Prime
Minister) for nine of the past 13 years, was thrown out of
office in January when one scandal too many surfaced.

    As a nonexecutive President, Robinson has little real
power; her only crucial role is to intervene if she believes
that any proposed legislation is unconstitutional. But
immediately upon her election in late 1990, Robinson showed that
she understood the enduring importance of symbols. From the
candle in the kitchen window -- once a sign of welcome to the
"tatiehokers," men who went to Scotland to harvest potatoes --
she has created a highly visible office, representing her
countrymen at their best. She is now easily the most popular
figure in the country, drawing crowds everywhere in her
ceaseless crisscrossing of the land.

    Robinson has virtually created a new office, one with far
more clout than the retirement sinecure it had become. Though
she barely squeaked in, her popularity standing in a recent
poll was around 80%. A lot of it has to do with Irish pride. By
opening up the presidential mansion to virtually any group that
wants to come, she has nurtured her countrymen's love for their
history. By sailing expertly through 25 or 30 public engagements
a week, she is a highly visible symbol of the national
character. By visiting Northern Ireland and encouraging travel
between the two states, she embodies the hope that the deadly
rancor can be combatted.

    Mary Terese Winifred Bourke acquired her commitment to
social justice from her family. The Bourkes were Roman Catholic
gentry in the prosperous town of Ballina in County Mayo; both
parents were doctors. Mary's grandfather, a retired lawyer, took
her under his wing, describing his old cases and telling her
how the law should be an instrument for social change and the
protection of individuals. "Often he'd be in the process of
opening a new packet of books that he'd ordered by mail. His
communication was short and pithy, and often I would do a lot
of the talking."

    After her Paris year, Mary went to Trinity College in
Dublin to study law. All indications are that she had a good
time there. Her mother had bought a Dublin house for her brainy
brood (Robinson is the third child and only girl among five) and
added a governess to keep order. There were plenty of parties,
but according to her brother Henry, "she always got the balance
right." After graduation she spent a year at Harvard getting a
master's degree at the law school. That was a seismic learning
experience.

    It was 1967, just before the Harvard Yard exploded with
student protest. "There was intense questioning then," she
recalls. "I had a law degree, but I hadn't really been
encouraged to think. And Harvard was just facing up to the fact
that there were inequalities of sex and race." Also, the Harvard
method of teaching was different, emphasizing discussion and
examining unresolved ambiguities of the law.

    Upon returning to Ireland she married fellow lawyer
Nicholas Robinson, the son of a Protestant banker and a former
political cartoonist for the Irish Times. She took on cases of
sexual and employment disadvantage to women. She fought for
legalizing birth control and divorce (or "the divorce," as it
is known locally). For years she was active in the Labour Party,
serving 20 years in the Senate, but her two attempts to run for
the more powerful Dail, the lower house of Parliament, ended in
defeat. She finally broke with the party because she thought it
was intransigent on the Northern Ireland question. A reunified
island is perhaps her ultimate goal. In addition, she and her
husband helped establish the Irish Center for European Law in
Dublin, a forum that is highly respected throughout the
Continent. It was a career that could easily have led to a seat
on the Supreme Court or a major job with the European Community.

    The presidency seemed a remote objective for this highly
successful advocate of human rights and feminist causes. So too
did her style: she favored severe suits and a nonexistent hairdo
and kept her sense of humor well under wraps. Her goals were
serious. "She worked in the belief that legal change could
provide for social change. In her Senate record and the cases
she undertook, she was always there for the hard stuff," says
John Rogers, a former Attorney General and Labour Party
stalwart.

    It took a springy leap of the imagination on the part of
Rogers and other Labour masterminds to see their former member
as President. But Labour was tired of its minor role in
politics. Says Rogers: "The idea was to get a woman of such
quality -- her strength challenged the status quo."

    When Rogers proposed that she run, he recalls that "she
looked as if she'd been shot." Not for long. After a weekend of
consulting with her husband, she called back and said, in a
typical old-Mary locution, "I think we have reason to talk." The
new Mary emerged quickly. Out went the pinstripe wardrobe. In
came smart suits, always by Irish designers. A stylist gave her
a fashionable haircut, and she began to apply some makeup.
Cynical? Not in her view. "I felt it was a way to project that
I was serious about the campaign," she says, "and that had its
own effect. I saw myself less as the bluestocking and more the
person trying to communicate that we have an office here that
can represent what is modern about Ireland. I was so keen to get
that across that I would have done whatever it took."

    But Dublin politicians saw her as a troublemaker who would
use her potent legal skills to cross the boundaries of her job
and challenge the government. Any such action, they feared,
would damage the value of her nebulous office. No fracas has
ever occurred. She showed her grasp of the presidency last
March in the notorious case in which the government tried to
stop a 14-year-old rape victim from going abroad for an
abortion. Robinson spoke out, emphasizing the need for Irish
society to confront the issue but not dictating the resolution.
Characteristically, she saw a chance to guide her people by
citing the human sides of a dilemma that highlights how fast
even this homogeneous country is changing.

    All is not astuteness, however. She is an intellectual,
yes, and a realist. But as an old colleague notes, she has a
mulish streak. "She can idealize the causes she's involved in
just because they are hers," he observes. "All her geese are
swans." Digging in too hard, even falling prey to fixations, has
cost her some court decisions in the past. "A stubborn girl is
our Mary," laughs Rogers.

    But the emphatic, headstrong side of the President -- a
side the Irish would relish -- is rarely seen. She admits that
she doused the spontaneous side of her nature when she joined
the bewigged, masculine Irish bar. Even now she is loath to
provide a glimpse into her exemplary private life. When she
toured the U.S. last fall, she came across as rather
straitlaced. An American who talked to her said the unthinkable:
"She's Nancy Reagan -- only good."

    The remark is not only rough, it's wrong. Nancy Reagan's
gelid smile and fixed gaze are foreign to Robinson, who really
sparkles when she meets people. She has a thrilling, throaty
laugh, but quips are not her style. Her brothers and old friends
insist that she can top tall stories with the best of them --
and that in a land where the gab is the biggest gift of all.
Around a dinner table, she and her husband often talk vehemently
and at once, taking different verbal paths to the same end --
rather like characters in an opera.

    Her trustiest ally is her husband, who functions as a
candid and unsparing critic. "There are times when he tells me
what I really don't want to know," she says with a laugh.
Perhaps more important, he sees himself frankly as a role model
for other men. "I have no problem about appearing with Mary and
supporting her," he says. "She is the one of us who holds
office."

    Their friends note that temperamentally, the couple
balance each other well. Mary is the classic overachiever with
plenty of ambition and the kind of bottomless stamina that
successful politicians often have. Nick, observes Irish Senator
David Norris, has an incisive mind but appreciates ``good food
and good grog and enjoying life at an easier pace." The
Robinsons guard the privacy of their children, Tessa, 19,
William, 18, and Aubrey, 11. When Robinson visited Belfast in
February, security was tight, but the word leaked to the press.
Aubrey missed his customary perfect score in current events
because, alone of his class, he did not know his mother's travel
plans.

    Around Dublin, Robinson is at least as big a celebrity as
any U2 band member or Sinead O'Connor. Like royalty, she cannot
go to a convenience store without being recognized and fussed
over. In fact, the Observer has called her "the thinking man's
Princess Di." There are still five years to go in her term of
office and, if she wants, she can run for another seven-year
stint. If she has her way -- and she is very determined -- she
will leave her country better off than she found it.