The Park keeper

Part of the Robinson legacy, it could be argued, has created the presidential campaign fiasco currently being played out before our eyes. "I am glad you used that word," says Bride Rosney, special adviser to the former President, "but I blame the politicians for allowing this vacuum to develop. They should have been identifying a successor. It is nothing to do with the Robinson legacy, it is their fault. I think it's all very sad." Equally, as the current candidates grapple with variations on the Robinson rhetoric, Rosney points out: "They are distorting her language. It's unfortunate. When Mary Robinson became President she consciously moved away from the language of a lawyer and devised a new one." Rosney has a reputation for being tough and bossy and for having played the central role behind what came to be seen as the "throne" during Mrs Robinson's term of office. But, she says, the regal aura which began to surround Robinson was imposed by the media, not sought by the Aras team.

Much has been made of the myth of Rosney, the ruthless power-broker whose job was about manipulating protocol not policy. Protocol seems a petty preoccupation compared with active policy-making - did she not find this frustrating?

"In this context protocol was policy," she says. The office of President under the Irish Constitution is a limited one. "The President's greatest power lay in the fact she had no power," she says. Even so, Robinson and Rosney certainly pushed those limits. "I like manipulating data," says Rosney, whose tone when describing either her early life or her recent responsibilities remains neutral. But then having flown in from New York the previous day, her step is far from jaunty. She is not particularly physically dynamic, nor does she seem the typical power-dressed fixer liable to shriek "Off with his head."

Rosney's method is more subtle, formidable by being utterly unformidable. No mobile phones are buzzing, she has no briefcase; her clothes are ordinary and she looks much like the teacher she was. The expression in her dark brown eyes is shrewd and thoughtful. Though obviously a careerist and one who reads a question as it is asked, she gives the impression of being slow-moving, deliberate, careful and able to control her natural impatience, a quality which she also knows how to exploit.

This is the first time she has been interviewed and she seems slightly surprised finally to have broken her decision to preserve her privacy. "People weren't even sure about my name, some thought I was called Rosemary" - but now she is ready to speak about herself. Yet the shadow of Mary Robinson will hover over the conversation, an observation Rosney accepts.

"I'm a back-room person. I don't have a specific expertise, what I do have is a good gut feeling and cop - that's what I operate on. I can suss out a situation pretty quickly. I trust my judgement." She is also an organiser. "I've always been one, more than I realised." Does she agree she is bossy? "Yeah." Is she a bully? "No."

BORN in 1949, she shares her birthday, February 12th, with Ronald Reagan. Before there is time to commiserate, she names another fellow birthday boy, Abraham Lincoln. Rosney is the second of four children and although life began in Cahirciveen, Co Kerry, the family moved to Phibsboro in Dublin when she was four. "But the Kerry roots remain deep; once from Kerry, you're always from Kerry." Her accent remains in no man's land, somewhere between Co Kerry and north Co Dublin.

As a child her summer holidays were spent in Co Kerry with her maternal grandparents. But she never romanticises the Kerry countryside of those summers. "I'm a city person. I love cities. I don't like the darkness or the silence of the country. They are things I find unnerving."

She attended the Dominican Convent in Eccles Street, "now demolished", and recalls being very influenced by her chemistry teacher. Although her father was a solicitor, at no time did Rosney consider the law. "I always wanted to teach. But I only saw a degree as a means to an end." Arriving at UCD to study science, she could as easily have done history: "I had been very impressed by my history teacher as well. Looking back at it, there were far more jobs teaching science than history but that didn't make my mind up. It could easily have either. I enjoyed school and college."

Allowing herself her only flamboyant gesture of the entire interview, she announces with some flourish: "My academic record was appalling" - which is of course not true. At college, where she became involved in debating and drama, she also had her first experience of activism when she became class representative.

Describing her family as "politically aware but without party allegiances", she recalls that her father had canvassed for Sean MacBride's Seanad campaign in the early 1950s. "And as a child, I would have been about seven, I remember the Hungarian situation in 1956 left an impression on me. I was conscious of my mother reading about it from the papers and of my parents talking about it." Politics for her has always been about the individual - "I never voted party" - and, she says, she has never been a member of any party.

IN 1971 Rosney completed her H.Dip and began teaching at the Dominican College in Ballyfermot. Teaching was fine. In 1976 she was approached to act as chairwoman of the Dublin Arts Festival. Her interest in the arts is, she says, "very general". The festival's theme was medieval Dublin and through this, and her association with Prof F.X. Martin, she became involved with the Friends of Medieval Dublin. This coincided with the public discovery of the city's shameful plans for Wood Quay and for its extraordinarily rich Viking heritage.

For more than three-and-half years, from August 1977 until March 1981, Wood Quay was frequently in the news and the public became increasingly aware of its enormous archaeological significance. After the High Court declared the part of Wood Quay within the old city wall a national monument, then, on a legal technicality, it conceded to Dublin Corporation permission to demolish the same national monument.

Asked about the prevailing mood, she describes it as anger. "The anger at the destruction of this important site, a site which was more extensive than that at York which had been preserved. The worse thing about Wood Quay was that it wasn't developers doing this to Dublin, it was the city of Dublin doing this in the name of the citizens. Anger was directed at politicians on both local and national level. The people never wanted the building blocks that are up there now."

Archaeology is not a particular interest of Rosney but she says: "I'm very interested in cities, I do have an interest in medieval street plans. So while I wouldn't visit monuments in the countryside, I do like cities." By the time of the Wood Quay scandal, she had already visited York and was able to make comparisons with the contrasting official approaches there and in Dublin.

Acting as the secretary of the occupation group camping at the site, she has never forgotten the anger of that time with its mood of militant pacifism and refers to a remark made during the occupation by the poet Thomas Kinsella. "You can be hurt into politics," he said and the episode became a hurtful and important episode. It also had a significant impact of the local elections of June 1979. Rosney devised an election leaflet drop which advised the electorate to vote for politicians on the strength of their respective stances on Wood Quay.

"So newcomers like Mary O'Flaherty defeated Paddy Belton, then the outgoing Lord Mayor of Dublin." Belton paid for his stance on Wood Quay. In an issue of Wood Quay Occupation News dated June 12th 1979, the lead article began: "The news that Lord Mayor Paddy Belton had been sacked by the people of his Dublin constituency was unreservedly welcomed behind the barricades here at the Wood Quay site. No-one in Irish public life has opposed preservation more strenuously than Mr Belton. There can be little doubt that those who suffered his frequent outbursts in the chamber at City Hall must feel that Irish political life could only be enriched by the passing of Belton into oblivion."

Wood Quay was also personally important for Rosney. A fellow supporter in the battle to protect the site was Mary Robinson, who became legal adviser for Operation Sitric, and Rosney and Robinson became friends. In 1981, Mary Robinson asked Rosney to be her baby son's godmother. Rosney now has 10 godchildren and says of the role: "It is an honour for someone to ask you to be their child's godparent. It also means that they intend you to stick around."

Rosney has no children and although she has had a long relationship, she continues to live with her mother in Malahide, Co Dublin. Eleanor Rosney is, says her daughter, "a remarkable person. She was very ill about 20 years ago and was faced with deciding whether to live or die." Home life in terms of ordinary domesticity does not interest Rosney. She doesn't garden or decorate; the prospect of either horrifies her.

"I like seeing friends. I'm passionate about current affairs. I read, but not fiction, mainly social history. I have no time for airport thrillers. I can't understand people who do." Home for her, she says, is somewhere to sleep.

Her teaching career continued through the 1980s, initially at Portmarnock Community School. She was also involved by then with the Teachers' Union of Ireland and served on its national executive between 1982-83. "I was responsible for all community schools from Dublin in a line across to north Galway and up to Donegal." Having applied for the position of vice principal of Rosmini School when it was still a boys' school run by a religious order, she was appointed and taught science and maths. Within four years she was principal. Rosmini had by then become a community school. She and Robinson were still close friends. When Mary Robinson was approached by the Labour Party to contest the presidential election as its candidate, Robinson consulted Rosney. She agreed to work on the campaign. In the early days it was seen as little more than a well-intentioned gesture. "I said to Mary Robinson the test of her success would be watching Brian Lenihan implement her ideas."

Tension was central to Robinson's relationship with the Labour Party. It seemed as if Rosney and Robinson had deliberately set out to create a "them and us" situation. "I respect Dick Spring and Fergus Finlay but they would never be friends of mine."

Rosney accepts there were tensions. "Mary Robinson refused to rejoin the Labour Party. And it did look as if it had put her there and she then walked away."

Isn't that what happened?

"Yes." Rosney paraphrases Robinson's victory-night speech: "I thank my supporters and I bid them farewell, as I'm President for all the people." There may have been more to this conscious de-politicisation. Having resigned from the Labour Party in 1985 over the terms of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Mary Robinson had actively disassociated herself from the party which appeared to be her natural political home. Some observers also believed she had been slighted by Dick Spring's decision not to appoint her his Attorney General. Not even at the height of the election triumph was there any sign of a warm new relationship emerging.

The tensions began as soon as Rosney realised that Robinson had a good chance of winning while the Labour Party was prepared for her to finish a good second. "I resented that. I don't think you undertake anything with the idea of coming second." By May or June 1990, Rosney had begun thinking of Robinson as a winner; by August she felt she would win. Victory won, Mary Robinson then requested her own special adviser. The then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, approved the proposal and is alleged to have remarked: "I've given her a piece of rope to hang herself on. Her name is Rosney. Find out about her." Rosney became the first special adviser to be appointed to an Irish President. At first she was wary. "I felt it could affect our friendship. I took leave of absence from Romini."

Throughout Robinson's term, there were moments of friction, such as the handshake with Gerry Adams. "It was the British government not the Irish Government that advised against that. All the press did was to obscure the fact that all those community groups which had been ignored were now being recognised. Adams is an important part of the west Belfast community - it is ridiculous to think he could have been ignored."

As for the former President's handshake with General Pinochet in Chile she says: "We were in Chile and he was an accepted guest at the function." In a position like that, she says, there is nothing a visitor can do. While she admits to feeling very uncomfortable about being in the same room as him, she says the most frightening experience she ever had was in the company of the Somali warlords.

Did she brief the press? "Only before or after official State visits, or during them." According to Rosney most press inquiries in the early days concerned Robinson's wardrobe. "I remember telling one fashion editor I would give her details of the President's wardrobe when she supplied me with what the Taoiseach would be wearing."

For seven years she accompanied Mrs Robinson on every State visit. There were 70 foreign trips. What did Rosney get out of the experience? "I think she [Robinson] would say it was enriching, but I realised in places like India and Africa that I could visit, but wouldn't be able to work there."

Convinced that the Labour Party never consolidated on Robinson's success, she points out, however, how much Robinson heightened the morale of Irish women. It is true, but it was not all celebration. There has also been a startling increase in the number of Irish women murdered during the past seven years, so has the lot of women really improved that much? "Irish women were murdered, but so were Irish men," she counters. "I think it shows that the barriers were all breaking down."

Although still working as adviser to Robinson and currently based in Geneva, where the former President is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rosney sees herself in a hand-over role. She will soon return to Ireland.

"It was important for Mary Robinson to have an extra pair of eyes and ears in the early days of the new job." Robinson has already met some 55 foreign ministers. "This is only possible in the opening weeks of a session." Rosney doesn't know what her next job will be.

"All I can say is that it will be exciting." Aside from that, Bride Rosney is now looking for a new job.