Everybody gets a chance to say their piece. (It’s now broken: Ireland has its first woman attorney general.) Dec 3, 2015: 25 years since MARY ROBINSON was inaugurated as President of Ireland, writes Cathal Coyle. Do women lead and manage differently than men? Photography: MRFCJ Mary Robinson became the first female president of Ireland in 1990 but refused to be a figurehead like her predecessors. In India you have many women who are now representatives in their local government. I believe they can be useful. I knew I would have to, and I did it respectfully because he was the leader of the community. It’s not my style. The last three climate conferences were presided over by women—Connie Hedegaard in Copenhagen, Patricia Espinosa in Cancún, and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane in Durban—and they have agreed to form a troika, around which we have built 60 ministers, heads of agencies, and business leaders, including nine or 10 supportive men. In the beginning, maybe their husbands tell them what to do, but a little exercise of power rubs off and they soon begin to think and take their own decisions. I had an aunt in India who was doing great work with poor girls in Bombay and Bangalore and used to write long letters about it. I’m doing that with my foundation. But I felt I had to accept the invitation because we had to break that logjam and open up the community. Interviewed by Alison Beard. You were surprised to be asked to run for president. You’ve described yourself as a provoker, from your advocacy of women’s and homosexuals’ rights when you were a lawyer to your firm stance against some U.S. policies at the UN. My mother also was a great influence, as were public figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Irish heroes who espoused nonviolence. Photography: MRFCJ Mary Robinson became the first female president of Ireland in 1990 but refused to be a figurehead like her predecessors. After leaving her post at the United Nations, Mary Robinson founded the non-governmental organisation Realising Rights: The Ethical Globalisation Initiative. But when I was elected, I made it very clear that I was going to be doing the job as a woman. At the UN, I agreed to serve an extra year after my first four-year term, and then 9/11 happened. (PIC: RollingNews.ie) 7. Obviously, it’s not black-and-white, but I do think women tend to be problem solvers and lead in a more participatory way. She was also known as a campaigner, barrister and academic. Then, on Valentine’s Day in 1990, I had the surprise invitation to be the Irish Labor Party nominee. But obviously, when he consulted everyone, the United States in particular said, “No, she’s too outspoken. All Rights Reserved. All rights reserved. But I do try to compartmentalize what I do. I struggled to build up the office of high commissioner for human rights because of the bureaucracy at the UN. Now, I know that some good men leaders have and are developing those qualities. Have you ever really looked carefully at the provisions of the constitution relating to the president?” And when I looked I thought, “There is much more someone could do with this and it would be important, because it would be exercising a moral authority rather than the political power of the Irish parliamentary system.”. So the skill is to serve as head of state, directly elected by all the people of Ireland, and endeavor for the seven years on their behalf. It’s an important question, but it’s not one that I’m going to answer because I very much value the tradition of former presidents of Ireland not speaking about issues that are in the current political domain. In 1992, she was the first head of state to visit Somalia after it suffered from civil war and famine; she was also the first to visit Rwanda after the genocide in that country in 1994. She also reached out to the Irish diaspora and famously put a symbolic light in the kitchen window in Áras an Uachtaráin, (the candle in the window is an old Irish custom) to remember those Irish emigrants around the world. Mary Robinson. Strongly committed to human rights, she used her influence to draw attention to global humanitarian issues. The Irish people said it was the right thing to do. When she visited Queen Elizabeth in London in 1993, it was the first such meeting between the heads of state of the two countries. I remember the night of the election, sitting with them over a meal concocted at the last minute and saying, “Even though I’m now president of Ireland, you are the most important thing in my life.” That was important for me to say, and it was important for them to hear. She held this post until 2002, after pressure from the United States led her to declare that she wasn’t able to continue her work. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. He showed that everybody matters, which became the title of my memoir. At the time, the presidency was not really central to Irish life; it was a very high office but rather remote. This was a no-go area because of the IRA. The challenge to this troika-plus is to listen to women who are coping with climate change and get everyone to do something about it in their sphere of influence. What did Irish leaders do wrong in the run-up to the financial crisis, and what advice would you give them now about how to recover from it? Some say that you were passed over for attorney general before the presidency. As President, Mary Robinson did much to communicate a more modern image of Ireland and greatly raised the profile of the office of President. In Norway they seem very happy with business quotas, because they see that having men and women together in the boardroom leads to perceptive decisions. In those days, that was unusual, but I did it because I deeply believed that those areas needed to be reformed if we wanted to have an open, pluralist country and help the peace process in Northern Ireland. Which skills have served you best in your career? She was nominated by the Labour Party, and supported by the Green Party, the Workers’ Party and independent senators, to seek election to become Ireland’s first female president. Where did you get the courage to challenge people more powerful than you? I know you’ve had a long and successful marriage. She later lectured in European Community law from 1975 to 1990. Mary Therese Winifred Bourke was born on May 21, 1944,in the town of Ballina, Ireland. We don’t want her.” I was disappointed, but I could see that I’d had very good innings. People told me it wouldn’t help my career as high commissioner, but it seemed much more important to do the job than to try to keep the job. You’ve lost elections. I wondered, when I was elected, how I would fulfill my promise to represent an Ireland that cared about human rights, and when the opportunity came to go to Somalia and later to Rwanda, I spoke out on the need to address the conflicts, to stop genocidal killing, to support countries coming out of these traumas.