Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson, born Mary Bourke in 1944, is an Irish law professor and politician who was the first woman president of Ireland, serving from December 1990 to September 1997. She studied law at Trinity College Dublin, where she was elected a scholar in 1965, and in 1969, aged 25, was appointed Reid Professor of Criminal Law there. In the same year she was first elected to the Seanad as an independent senator, with the aim of separating Catholic teaching from aspects of the criminal law, including the law on contraceptives and homosexuality. After the presidency she was United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002, presiding over the World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001, and she later founded Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative.