Mary Robinson is a transformative figure in Irish politics – the country’s first woman president, a tireless campaigner for equality and ferocious advocate for human rights.
It’s a shame, then, that her life has been flattened out into a functional feel-good story by Mrs Robinson (RTÉ One,Wednesday, 9.35pm). The documentary, released in cinemas in 2024 and now airing on terrestrial television, has a becalmed, “eat your greens” quality and is incurious about the private person behind the public figure.
The best that can be said is that it does an efficient job tracing the broad arc of Robinson’s career – from her childhood as the daughter of two doctors and the grandchild of a well-connected local lawyer in Ballina to her advocacy for women’s rights as a young barrister in 1970s Dublin. Her fearlessness in the face of power is confirmed all over again as we see her become UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and stand up to both China and the United States – only to be asked to leave the job before her term was up.
But while these milestones are ticked off, Mrs Robinson doesn’t seem to have any opinions of its own about the former Uachtarán and what has ended up on screen has the quality of a Wikipedia entry brought to life. Across its 90 minutes, the film cries out for a spark – a zinging insight, a surprise that adds to our appreciation or understanding of Robinson. None is forthcoming.
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It also glosses over Robinson’s privileged background as the daughter of doctors, who grew up in a prominent house in the middle of Ballina. At a time when most people had very little, the Bourkes had a lot. There was a nanny at home and rather than attend school in Mayo she was educated privately at Mount Anville in Dublin.
She was, as she says on camera, a woman and, thus, a second-class citizen in post-de Valera Ireland. But there were a lot of third-class citizens at the time, too, and it is a shame that she isn’t asked for her views about privilege and power in Ireland.
The turning point in her life, of course, was the 1990 presidential election. As the film shows, the campaign against her had a nasty edge. One low was Charles Haughey apparatchik Pádraig Flynn going on the radio and claiming that she was presenting a fake version of herself and of her having a newfound interest in her family.
However, Mrs Robinson makes the baffling decision to skirt around rival candidate Brian Lenihan’s self-sabotage when he contradicted himself on television over whether he had phoned the Aras to ask president Hillery to decline to dissolve the Dáil in 1982.
At the time, the “mature recollection” debacle was widely regarded as having swung the election. And yet Mrs Robinson does not mention it. Nor does it broach the whispering campaign against the president once she had taken up residency at the Phoenix Park - for instance, the notorious “Big Bird” incident in which her fashion sense was mocked. There was a feeling at the time that many in Ireland wished to undermine her and could not come to terms with a woman in power. You wouldn’t know it from watching Mrs Robinson.
There are contributions from celebrity admirers such as mogul Richard Branson and musician Peter Gabriel. The film isn’t quite a hagiography, however. Robinson admits to bad judgment over leaving the presidency three months early to take up her job with the UN. She is embarrassed, too, over having been manipulated into vouching for the safety of Dubai’s Princess Latifa.
Good on her for having the courage to acknowledge her missteps – and for her continuing advocacy for climate justice. As both a young lawyer and today as an outspoken elder stateswoman, she has always walked towards the future with dignity and courage. She deserves better than this often plodding film.
