Mrs Robinson, the first female president of Ireland, was promoting her
best-selling autobiography, Everybody Matters, at the festival, of which
the Irish Examiner is media partner. Mrs Robinson said her upbringing in Co Mayo was “quite comfortable. I was very lucky in the encouragement my parents gave me, and the opportunities they gave me, especially in my education.
“Ireland was authoritarian when I was growing up, particularly in the way it treated women. The doctrine of Jesus Christ is the strongest moral code I know, but I think the country had drifted far away from that.”
She studied law at Trinity College Dublin and later did her master’s in law at Harvard. Her experience of the Civil Rights movement in America inspired her to seek election to the Seanad.
There she controversially campaigned for the legalisation of contraception. “Archbishop McQuaid condemned me as a ‘curse upon the country’,” she said. “I was just 26 at the time.”
She said she was shocked at being asked to run for president. “On the 14th of Feb, 1990, [attorney general] John Rogers rang and asked to meet me. He called around to my home and told me the Labour Party wanted to challenge the presidency, and asked me would I put my named forward. At first, I was astonished. But after thinking about it and discussing it with [husband] Nick, and realising how much the elected president of Ireland can do, I agreed.”
One of the highlights of her career was meeting Nelson Mandela. “He is everything that people say he is.”
Meanwhile, West Cork Music director Francis Humphrys paid tribute to the outgoing artistic director of the West Cork Literary Festival, Denyse Woods, who is returning to writing.
The festival concludes today.