Irish writer Eavan Boland once reflected, “I began writing in a country where the word ‘woman’ and the word ‘poet’ were almost magnetically opposed. One word was used to invoke collective nurture, the other to sketch out self-reflective individualism.” 

Mary Robinson, Ireland’s first female president, likewise entered politics in a country where women are constitutionally prescribed to a domestic role in the home. But in the December 1990 elections, Robinson proclaimed that by electing her, Irish women, “instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system.”

Robinson visited DePaul last Friday, Feb. 28, for a public discussion with Mary McCain, director of the university’s Irish Studies program. Held in McGowan South, the event marked the official transfer of Robinson’s personal literary collection to DePaul’s Library. 

A large bulk of the literary materials include works by her longtime friend Eavan Boland, who died in 2020.

“I do want this to be the Eavan Boland collection, not the Mary Robinson collection, and we’ll work that out,” Robinson said to the crowd of awestruck Chicago Irish.

Robinson and Boland met while studying at Trinity College Dublin in the 1960s. They became fast friends who made their respective marks as trailblazing Irish women of a new era. 

“I was studying law, she was studying English literature, but somehow we found each other. We never stopped talking,” Robinson recalled. “The interesting thing is, I was the kind of dreamer and abstract and vague, and Eavan was so practical, so down to earth.”

She treasured the friendship, especially during her tenure as president of Ireland, which Robinson remarked could be isolating.

After studying law at Trinity College, Robinson received a fellowship to continue her legal studies across the pond at Harvard University, earning her master’s in law in 1968. 

“I really wanted to use law as an instrument for social change,” Robinson said. “I didn’t want to make money from law. I wanted to make change.”

Robinson certainly made change, becoming a member of the Irish Senate at just 25 years old and later becoming the first independent candidate and first female to secure the Irish presidency.

But Robinson’s efforts for progressive social change in a historically conservative nation did not come without significant obstacles. 

As a young Irish senator in 1971, Robinson introduced legislation to make contraception accessible to Irish women. Back then, only married women with a doctor’s prescription could obtain contraception.

“This was ridiculous, stupid,” Robinson said during the discussion. “I mean, clearly, women needed reproductive health. They needed family planning.” 

With the support of two male senators, Robinson proposed a bill to amend the criminalization of contraception.

“Little did I understand that I had tapped into something,” she said. “I was talking about sexuality. I was talking about relationships. It was hugely unpopular.”

At the time she introduced the bill, Robinson received swaths of hate mail and political backlash. It wasn’t until 1985 — nearly 15 years after Robinson’s initial proposal — that the Irish government fully legalized the sale of contraceptives. 

Robinson served as President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997 and as United Nations high commissioner for human rights from 1997 to 2002.

As a revered stateswoman, Robinson has used her platform to be a longtime champion of gay rights, women’s rights and climate justice. 

But even while carrying the weight of justice and truth, Robinson notably carries herself with humility, intelligence and a palpable sense of humor. 

“I place extraordinary importance on humor,” Robinson said to the crowd still recovering from a clever quip she delivered just seconds earlier. 

“When I joined the Elders that Nelson Mandela brought together in 2007, I can’t tell you how much fun we have talking about the most serious problems,” she said. “It sort of grounds you in a warmth of sharing joy, sharing humor, but also having a lot of empathy for pain and suffering.”

She said if she had any advice for young women it would be to “use humor more.”

Rich Goode, a fundraiser for DePaul, attended the Friday evening talk. He said he has long been inspired by Robinson’s life and mission. 

“(The talk) was fun to be a part of, and just fun to have a connection with a great world leader and leading woman for the past 60 years in world politics,” Goode said. 

He said as a former English teacher, he hopes students take advantage of the nearly 900 volumes of Robinson’s personal literary collection coming to DePaul. 

Reilly Shuff, a DePaul senior studying political science said she will return to DePaul postgrad to study Robinson’s collection. 

“I have an Irish studies minor, and I hope to use that niche part of my career to move forward,” Shuff said. 

At the end of the talk, Robinson reflected on the beauty of literature, particularly poetry. She said poetry does not always help her solve the world’s problems, but nevertheless the words and abstract ideas “lift me.”

She told the crowd one of her favorite poems is “From the Republic of Conscience” by Irish poet Seamus Heaney. 

“It’s a lovely poem, because the person goes to the Republic of Conscience … and they have a sort of spiritual experience,” Robinson explained. “But when they come back, they become an ambassador of conscience. And the last line is, ‘no ambassador will ever be relieved.’”

As president, U.N. high commissioner and now as an elder statesperson, Robinson herself has become an ambassador of conscience, an ambassador for the rights of man, an emissary of hope and good humor. 

Even at age 80, Robinson does not want to be relieved. 

“Human rights are a struggle,” Robinson said. “Women’s rights are a struggle. We have to know that, but we have to keep hope in action, because that is the energy.”

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