The Authorised Biography
When Ireland elected Mary Robinson, a liberal woman lawyer, as its President, the country made a conscious break with the conservative past. In this authorised biography, she reveals the political and personal struggles she fought to help create a tolerant new Ireland.
For the first time, she details her bruising battles with controversial Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, and her prickly relationship with Foreign Minister, Dick Spring. Many of her changes to the Presidency were initially resisted but she went on to make historic visits of friendship to Northern Ireland and the British Royal Family. She tells, too, the full background to her controversial handshake with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams.
But this is also the intimate story of the Catholic girl from Mayo who defied her family to marry the man she loved; the shy academic who was changed forever by the warmth of popular affection; and who has now taken up the job of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This, exclusively, is the story of Mary Robinson.
