See Also: Robinson, Mary(encyclopedia)
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary(dictionary)
Crusoe, Robinson(dictionary)
Robinson, Jackie(dictionary)
Robinson, Smokey(dictionary)
Robinson, Sugar Ray(dictionary)
Robinson Crusoe(dictionary)
Robinson, Jackie(encyclopedia)
Robinson, Sugar Ray(encyclopedia)
Robinson, Edward G.(dictionary)

Robinson, Mary (sh)




orig. Mary Bourke

born May 21, 1944, Ballina, County Mayo, Ire.

Irish politician, first woman president of Ireland (1990-97).

She earned a law degree at the University of Dublin, where she became a professor of law (1969-75). She served in the Irish senate (1969-89) as a Labour Party member. Nominated by the Labour Party and supported by the Green Party and the Workers' Party, she became Ireland's first woman president in 1990 by mobilizing a liberal constituency and merging it with a more conservative constituency opposed to the Fianna Fail party. In 1997 she left office a few months before her term expired to take up the post of UN high commissioner for human rights.