The phenomenon that is Mary Robinson, President of Ireland, will fascinate the chroniclers and the sociologists when the history of these times comes to be written. And it will take time to evaluate her and to place her in perspective. Her influence and her place in the public imagination are in great disproportion to her constitutional role. Her popularity defies many of the laws of elected office. Her formula for success has run counter to everything which most of the Irish political establishment took for granted until she won the highest office in the land seven years ago.
How far has Mary Robinson shaped the Ireland of the 1990s? Or did the age call forth a woman in its own emerging likeness? There's the real question for the historians. And the answer will probably be found somewhere between the two propositions. Mary Robinson emerged from the relative obscurity of the Senate and the Law Library as a tide of demanding change rose through Ireland. It was a tide which sought an end to the sterility of traditional party politics, which rejected the inconsistencies of many of those claiming spiritual authority and which demanded accountability to the people as is ever before.
Mary Robinson seemed an unlikely candidate to harness this rising tide. It was the Labour party, leader, Dick Spring, who sensed the mood and who recognised the extent to which public opinion was changing. It was he who recognised that she might be the person to catch the tide, to personify the ideal of anew, progressive, generous Ireland. The rest is history.
But nobody could have anticipated the extraordinary impact which the new President was to make. If her campaign was born in the grime of the committee rooms, her presidency swiftly soared to undreamt of heights. From the day of her inauguration she used a language which was new in public life in Ireland. She spoke of inclusiveness and the dignity of the individual. She visited travellers and the marginalised. She reached out to the emigrants. She was there to comfort the grieving and the injured, whether in Warrington, or Rwanda or West Belfast. But none of this was at the cost of her formal duties to her office. She fulfilled those duties punctiliously, with unfailing dignity and poise.
Sometimes when small countries establish a modest presence on the world stage they fall prey to the illusion that the whole human race is impressed. We need to keep a sense of proportion when considering Mary Robinson's world profile. She established a hugely positive image for Ireland throughout the world. But if she succeeds in transferring from the presidency of Ireland to a significant human rights role - perhaps at the United Nations - it will be on her own personal merits. Ireland will share in the pride of any such success. But if it happens it will be because of this extraordinary woman's inherent qualities.
On balance, it may be no bad thing that she is not running for a second term. She gave of herself to the outermost limits of her endurance over the past seven years. She could hardly continue at the same pace. And perhaps she has given to this country the greater part of what she had to give. She steps down from the presidency of a State which is more confident, more caring, more honest and more open than when she took her oath of office in 1990. Those who said the presidency could never be more than a cypher were confounded. This society has a distance to go to fulfil all its ideals and dreams. But a new, better Ireland came closer in the 1990s and that process will always be synonymous with Mary Robinson.