As the powerful documentary Mrs. Robinson screens at festivals around the world, Mick Jordan reflects on how one woman’s unlikely rise to power marked the beginning of a modern Ireland — whether she meant it to or not.
There is a scene in Aoife Kelleher’s film Mrs. Robinson where the subject of the film describes her reaction to being asked to run for president. She believed she was too young to “run for anything” and was immediately told, “Mary, this isn’t fucking about you!” The same could be said about the film itself. In its chronicle of the revolutionary changes that happened to Irish society — changes that started with Mary Robinson becoming its first woman president in 1990 — the film is not about her — it’s about all of us.
State of the Nation
In September 1990, I went on a month’s holiday to New York. As I flew out of Dublin Airport, the Irish presidential election campaign was in full swing. The result was a foregone conclusion. Brian Lenihan was the clear frontrunner and the presidency would be a fitting reward for his many years of loyal service to Fianna Fáil. This was perfectly natural. It was the way things were done. This was a time when people sang “Arise and follow Charlie” (Haughey) without a shred of embarrassment.
And yet we thought we were terribly modern altogether. After all, contraception was now available in shops! Well — chemists — but still, you could now get what you needed without a prescription and you didn’t even need to be married. That year also saw the first Trip to Tipp festival, and I remember several inflated condoms floating through the air and onto the stage. Tom Dunne, lead singer of Something Happens, grabbed one and shouted out, “Remember when these were illegal?!” And we all did — because it was only five years before. But four years before, the country had voted against divorce, and two years before we had voted for the Eighth Amendment. The influence of the Catholic Church on Irish society was still a major thing — and was determined to remain so.
This had been the way of things since the formation of the state. It was often said we took our country back from the British and then handed it straight over to the Church. Certainly, successive governments sought the approval of the bishops for much of their policies. None more so than that of the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, whose opposition to the 1951 ‘Mother and Child’ healthcare bill effectively brought down the government. McQuaid even appears in Mrs. Robinson. As Mary Robinson talks about growing up in Catholic Ireland of the 1950s, we are shown footage of the Archbishop arriving at an event. He is welcomed by a large group of women. They all line up to kiss his hand and curtsey as he deigns to pass them. In his expression you can see his absolute divine right to this reaction. As I watched these scenes, all I could think was — “People need to see this to know that this was actually considered normal!” This was a society where women were expected to be wives and mothers (of vast quantities of children) and nothing else.
World in Motion
By 1990, that was all in the past. It was no longer felt that a woman’s place was in the home. She could work in any area that a man could, she could go into politics — she could even run for president. Obviously, of course, she couldn’t really expect to win.
When I was in New York, I was effectively cut off from home. There was no internet and no instant news updates, so if anything major happened in Ireland, I was unlikely to hear about it. When I flew back into Dublin Airport, the first thing I saw was the newspaper headline: “Brian Lenihan may still stage a comeback.” What had happened while I’d been gone?! It turned out — quite a lot.
Back in 1982, the then Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, had decided to call a general election. As is the standard formality, he submitted a request to President Patrick Hillery to dissolve the Dáil. Brian Lenihan phoned Hillery and tried (in vain) to persuade him to refuse to do this. In 1990, Lenihan denied ever making such a call. Tapes were later released of an interview he had given to a student, detailing exactly what he had said — on the non-existent call. This was a scandal too far. Suddenly, “Ah sure, everyone does that” was not acceptable anymore. Support for Brian Lenihan began to fall away, and in November, Ireland elected its first woman president.
True Faith
In the years that followed, Ireland changed — and changed utterly. Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1993. Divorce was finally granted in 1995. Both these changes were signed into law by President Mary Robinson. The first of these was the result of a judgment by the European Court of Human Rights on a case brought before it in 1988 by Senator David Norris. His legal representative for the case — was Mary Robinson.
Of course, Mrs Robinson has achieved a lot more since her seven years as president of Ireland ended. She left the job a few months early (something she admits in the film was a bad mistake) to become UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She is currently head of The Elders — an organisation of global leaders advocating for peace, justice and basic human rights. The idea for this group came from Nelson Mandela. In 2007, he worked with Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel to set it up. Both Branson and Gabriel appear in the film, with Branson saying that from the start Mandela wanted Mary Robinson on the list.
But for many Irish viewers, it is the election campaign of 1990 and the years of the presidency that followed that are of the most interest. These are the years that finally brought Ireland into the twentieth century — before it was too late. Aoife Kelleher’s film covers all this in great detail and presents it as an engrossing story of progression from Ireland-then to Ireland-now. This is our own history, and it is fascinating to watch — particularly for those of us who lived through these revolutionary times, blissfully unaware that that is what they were. This film makes sure we don’t doubt it again.
