Me & Mary Robinson, 7th, & 1st woman president of Ireland (photo)

Mary Robinson signing her memoir, Everybody Matters: My Life  Giving Voice, at Book Passages. A last minute impulse visit led to meeting her. She was so amazing. It was a FULL house at Book Passages. Mary's driver got lost enroute from Palo Alto, so we started late. Lots of old  Irish friends: Pat and Uta, Leslie...

What Mary said: everyone matters—that the individual is capable of changing society, the the world. Law and morality. Very empowering. Got a chance to chat with Mary at the end. Someone took a photo of us together, lovely. Thank you Jane Bark for driving us there!

This makes two Irish presidents I've met—Mary McAleece. I will have to dig up my notes.  We also met the inimitable Mo Mowlam, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, at UC Berkeley ca. 2000—she was a real firecracker, despite suffering from cancer.

My grandfather met Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, Ireland's first president of Dáil Éireann in San Francisco during the Irish War of Independence. Somewhere, there is a lost photo of them together, leaning on a car. We have a photo of Liam Mallows in our lower field. 

I have NOT, however, met, nor will I ever plan to meet Margaret Thatcher.

Me & Mary Robinson, 7th, & 1st woman president of Ireland (1990-1997)

Mary Robinson served as the seventh, and first female president of Ireland (1990-1997); she was appointed the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002). In her memoir, Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice, she writes of her pioneering work on behalf of women’s rights, the separation of church and state, and world peace. Mary Robinson's social advocacy also includes Oxfam, the GAVI Alliance, vaccinating children worldwide, and the Council of Women World Leaders, and she is one of the “Elders,” led by Nelson Mandela dedicated to bringing peace and justice.