Many who commented on the Robinson years asked whether the former President had led change or, as it was put, merely reflected it. Some were convinced that, one way or the other, when she left the office, Ireland would bid her a sentimental and, in some cases, hypocritical farewell - and promptly return to its old routine.
The answer to the first question may turn out to be that she responded to change in the country and, in doing so, changed the Presidency in a way that makes a return to the old routine unlikely if not impossible.
It wasn't just Mary Robinson who made the difference. The politicians who chose and supported her sensed change in the air; and those who went out to vote for her proved that these instincts were true.
Mrs Robinson's extraordinary popularity in office showed that many who had at first viewed her with suspicion soon came to recognise that what she'd promised and now delivered was change for the better.
The selection of four women to contest the Presidency in 1997 shows that the changes which had begun before Mrs Robinson's election, and gained momentum during the past seven years, are not going to stop now.
This doesn't mean that the present candidates and their supporters all point in the same direction. Far from it, though what may loosely be called the ideological contest isn't the end of the matter either.
There are differences, on some issues sharp differences, between the candidates' attitudes to social affairs and politics; between how they see Irish life now and what they expect of the new millennium.
Mary Banotti, who has long been on the liberal wing of Fine Gael, clearly stands at the opposite end of the political scale from Dana, Rosemary Scallon, whose mission is to warn of the dangers which she considers certain to accompany or flow from liberal reform.
Adi Roche and Mary McAleese represent the political forces - a broad coalition of the left on one side, Fianna Fail on the other - which fought the 1990 campaign on radically differing approaches to the Presidency, to politics and to the country.
Only someone who was blind to the differences between the candidates, or resented the changes of the 1990s and felt obliged to resist or dismiss them, could fail to appreciate what an intriguing campaign is about to begin.
Of course, party managers have learned the lessons of 1990: they could hardly ignore them. And Mrs Robinson has indeed been honoured, if that's the word, with the sincerest form of flattery.
But to portray the candidates as pale imitators of Mary Robinson's style is as wide of the mark as puffed-up claims that, to do the job, it's necessary to hold as many legal qualifications as she has.
By now almost everyone in the country must know that the powers of the Presidency are limited. The constitutional provisions which set out the obligations - and limitations - of the office are clearly stated and to the point.
The most controversial power is absolute discretion to refuse a dissolution of the Dail at the request of a Taoiseach who has lost its support.
No President has refused, but attempts were made to persuade Paddy Hillery to do so (and avoid an election) in 1982. Dr Hillery ignored the attempts (by erstwhile colleagues) and the Dail was duly dissolved.
The discretionary power which attracts most attention, however, is that of sending Bills which have been passed by the Dail and Seanad to the Supreme Court for a test of their constitutionality.
Here the President may have the advice of the Council of State - current and former office holders, with up to seven members of her own choosing - but she isn't obliged to take it. She may also take independent legal advice.
The power to have Bills tested was exercised on four occasions by Mrs Robinson; on eight occasions, all told, between 1938, when the office was set up, and 1992. (If Bills are found to be constitutional, they may not be challenged again.)
But the full significance of Mrs Robinson's Presidency had less to do with Constitution and laws than with the way she lived up to the promise to be a President of all the people.
This meant that she wasn't content to confine herself, or the office, to those already well served by the rest of the political system.
Some thought this openness unnecessary and, to judge by several commentaries this week, they still do.
But the Presidency, like all other offices set up to serve the citizens should have been open from the beginning; its holders accessible to all of the people, not just to a privileged few.
And, now that change has begun, no one dares draw back. A closed Presidency, withdrawn, aloof and one-sided in a country with pretensions to diversity, may have been taken for granted before the Robinson years. It won't do now.
Of course, there are signs of unrest in many quarters and for different reasons. There is, for instance, the resistance to centralised power - call it Dublin, party headquarters or Them Up There - which found expression in the decision of five county councils to support Dana's nomination.
Giving this power to the councils may have been little more than a gesture by the authors of the Constitution, like giving vocational bodies a right to nominate candidates for the Seanad and - Catch 22 - getting members of the Oireachtas and county councils to elect them.
Dana's nomination points to what has been described in a wider context as a democratic deficit. The surprise it caused also showed up another deficit: ignorance in Dublin about something that had been happening for some time in many parts of the State.
Some of her supporters had spent much time and energy in the past two years preparing the ground for their demand for a new referendum on abortion, so that some local councillors at least were in a receptive mood when they received her request for support.
Another phenomenon worth studying: last time round much was made of Labour's decision to look beyond the political mainstream for a candidate. This time it was expected.
Now, all but one of the candidates are from outside the mainstream and the exception, Mary Banotti, sits in the European Parliament.
Was this a recognition, as Mrs Robinson was fond of saying and Adi Roche has shown, that politics doesn't begin and end with the parties but has to do with organisations outside the run of the political mill?
Or did it suggest that, certainly in Fianna Fail and possibly elsewhere, party strategists realise that politicians have suffered greatly as a result of scandals?
We will learn more from this campaign than anyone had ever expected.