1 What motivated you to run for the Presidency?

2I did not have any desire or ambition to run for the Presidency. I was very surprised when the Irish Labour Party – which is the smallest of the three parties which can nominate a candidate for the Presidency – approached me. The date was a very interesting one: it was Valentine’s Day (14 February 1990)! It was a complete surprise and my initial reaction was not very enthusiastic because I had a very interesting career and very interesting work as a barrister. I had joined Chambers in London and I had joined a grouping of European lawyers in Brussels to look at issues of European Community law. And that’s what 1 thought I would do for the rest of my life.

3My first reaction, as I said, was not very enthusiastic because the Presidency seemed very remote and very ceremonial and not very relevant. I knew it was an honour to be asked, so I said that I would take the week-end to consider. And then because I am a constitutional lawyer I went and had another look at the Constitution and I found it a very interesting challenge when I saw it provided for the direct election of a non-executive Presidency. So you were directly elected by the people, you have that authority and that close relationship. How do you translate that into a relevant modem office? And when I started to pose that question, I found that I was hooked, I was interested. So by the end of the week-end: I said yes I would be prepared to be nominated and to go forward.

4 In one of your speeches you said: “I have a mandate for a changed approach within our Constitution.” What did you mean by that?

5I spent six months – which was a long time by Irish standards – going all around the country and discussing the idea of the Presidency and developing the way in which a non-executive President who was directly elected and chosen by the people to represent them could be in touch with and represent Ireland because the prescribed area of politics is quite narrow. It is very important but very prescribed... and there is so much else going on particularly in a country like Ireland. We have a huge voluntary sector in Ireland; many of the services, many of the initiatives, many of the Creative things that go on in Ireland are done outside the political world. So there was a possibility of being in touch and representing all of this, representing the voiceless. People said how does the President represent the voiceless? I find that by going to inner-cities, by visiting a prison, by being able to go to a very small rural area where they have developed a local community centre, these are the ways. I give them a voice by going along as President and very often I am able as an advocate, as a lawyer, to use my skills to make their project or their endeavours more coherent, to validate them, and to value them. They don’t need valueing really but nonetheless it is a recognition, that is very much appreciated. The project has its own validity but by coming as President I can give it much more significance. Also the people concerned have a greater self-confidence and a greater idea of their self-worth. And there is great scope for that in Ireland because we have the haves and the have-nots, those who have some access to power and many many people who feel they have no access to power and self-expression.

6 How would you define your powers?

7They are limited, one or two of the powers are very important under the Irish Constitution. For example, I have the power to refer a Bill passed by the Irish Parliament to the Supreme Court. The role that intrigues me though, that I find fascinating, is to represent symbolically. But the power is nonexistent. I have no budget, I have no legislative role, I have no policy-making role but the moral authority of being directly chosen by the people to be President means that I have the capacity to indirectly influence. How much? I think it is for others to say but I am satisfied that it is both very rewarding and very challenging.

8 Recently you said that “one of our greatest national resources has always been and still is our ability to serve as a moral and political conscience in world affairs”. With the recent abortion problem here, would you still maintain that position?

9I can be somebody who comes from the West of Ireland, from a Catholic background in the West of Ireland, and understand the process of change that Ireland is going through. It is not easy because many people in Ireland want to retain the very important values of family life, of neighbourhood, of community, and those are, life-enhancing values. They are often reflected in great room for large families, that warmth between parents and grandparents and children. Now I know that other countries also want to have these values but I think that there is a sense in Ireland that sometimes modem urban development can lose out on some of these. So the concerns are real concerns, we are engaged in a very significant debate. What is different and what for me is very encouraging is that the debate is open, that different views are expressed. I said at my inauguration that I represent a new pluralist Ireland, not that we will change all our laws overnight. I do not think we should rush to do that for its own sake. We have an openness to each other. We are willing to have different voices and to say that each of these can validly be expressed. You are not less Irish because you have a particular view point and I would note, looking over a period of twenty years, a very significant advance in fostering a more pluralist Ireland. I am certainly identified with a more pluralist Ireland and I use all the opportunities that I have to try to encourage that.

10 How do you see the influence of the EEC on Ireland?

11I find that our membership of the European Community has been very helpful. I am really focussing less on the straightforward economic issues though initially membership was very beneficial, for example, to the agricultural community in Ireland. Now there are obviously more problems. I mean psychologically we became one of a number of European member States meeting together in Brussels in the Council of Ministers, and it took us out from the shadow of Britain, next door, which was a very long shadow over a long period of time. We came to have a much more healthy and mature relationship, both with Britain and with our other European partners. And this has meant that the European influences are welcomed and yet they don’t overinfluence us. We have the strength of our Irishness within Europe. At the same time many of these influences are very beneficial. For example in the area of equality for women, the area of promoting a protection of heritage, whether it’s natural heritage or built heritage, because it’s not just Irish or French or German, it’s part of a European heritage. So many of the influences are welcome and are very beneficial. We would be very reluctant to see any inherent decision in relation to matters, for example of important moral consequence for Ireland, taken by outsiders. That would not be appropriate, but we are influenced and the influence is healthy and welcome.

12 Are you the President of all Ireland or the President of all the Irish?

13Well, I will answer first of all with a more light-hearted way. When I was elected, at my inauguration, I said that I wanted to represent the extended Irish family which was 70 million living all over the world and then some friends here in Ireland said, you know you elect a woman, 3.5 million elect her, and immediately she says she wants to represent 70 million! But I very much want to represent people. Territory is not the important thing and I obviously am elected by the people of this part of Ireland. I said during the election campaign that if elected I would put the greatest priority on extending the hand of friendship to the two communities in Northern Ireland, both Protestant and Catholic, Unionists and Nationalists. And I have been able to do this to a very real degree which pleases me very much, I have had so many requests from groups from Northern Ireland to come here to my residence at Aras an Uachtarain. In every week that I have been President at least one group has come and that is a minimal estimate and I had also an opportunity to go to Belfast earlier this year and I was very pleased to do that and I got a very warm reception.

14 Will you return there?

15I would be very keen to do so, I have many invitations, not just to Belfast but different places in Northern Ireland. I also have a wonderful flow, a dialogue, local historians send me material about the local historical areas. I get reports from the Women’s Centre in Derry, from other places across Northern Ireland, youth groups send me material, so there is a sense that they know that I am valueing what is really happening on the ground. I have been a witness through the groups that I have seen come here and through my visit to Belfast, I have been able to witness the amount of cross-community cooperation, which we underestimate. There is a great deal more than has been perceived outside Ireland and maybe even in this part of the country, particularly in the last two years. It is important that we both value that and reinforce it and encourage it.

16 You have been President now for 17 months, do you already envisage running for another seven years?

17Seventeen months has gone very quickly but is also quite a long period of time and I think seven years is quite a long time. I am not in a position really to know what my attitude will be. I took on this office because I saw that it was a very interesting challenge. I am very pleased that it has lived up to that. I certainly like a challenge, I am not worried about the future but I can’t really predict.

18 Is it difficult for your family life?

19I think it is, especially initially having to move from our home where we were very happy as a family, to move here. It worked very well, partly because we did not pretend it was going to be easy with our three children. And I have always had a very close relationship and support from my husband, Nick. We were law students together, we worked very closely together on everything and he was the one who saw before I did that I should go for the Presidency, that I should allow myself to be nominated. And he is very very supportive. He helped the whole process of making this our home and I am glad to say it has worked very well.

20 Has he any official status?

21No, his position was much more difficult than mine. Mine was defined and he had to carve out his role as Consort. He comes with me a great deal, particularly when I am out of Dublin and if it is abroad, he obviously comes with me. He also comes with me quite a bit around the country. I think he has become in his own right very popular for this. It is recognized that nobody elected him and he could stay at home. He is very interested in the conservation of Irish architecture: he is Chairman of the Irish Architectural Archives. He has also a big research project at the moment. He is very busy. When he comes, he is taking time off to be supportive. I also think he enjoys it. We both find it very enriching. Nobody really knows their country. One way to know it is to be President of it and go around and find out all the self-development that is going on at local community level, the local building of a heritage project, the work on the environment, what the young people are doing, what women are doing. Because this is what the President is invited to come and see and to value. In some sense members of the Irish Parliament and local politicians deal with the difficult problems. I, as President, come and value the positive side of things and it is very encouraging to see that much of it. We are in a very creative time in our arts and culture in Ireland. Countries go through different cycles and it may be because we have a young population and because we have been influenced by participating in the European Community that a deepening of our Irishness has been stimulated. Certainly it is very evident.

22 You meet many people of different persuasions and from different ranks in life. Do you succeed in putting them in contact with one another?

23Bearing in mind the modest nature of this office, yes, it has already been possible to put people in touch in quite a significant way. For example, I had women’s groups from the Falls Road, from the Shankill Road and from other areas together in a network, come here to Aras an Uachtarain. When I met them on my return to Belfast, they asked me could they be put in contact with similar groups here and we have begun that process. I will take a further step in May, we have a planned meeting here. I have also been able to put in touch young people from Enterprise groups and other youth groups. I have been encouraging a process of linking between professional and voluntary and sports activities. What happens is that some of these contacts were there and were rather discrete, people did not want to mention them. Now this has been valued by the President, I get letters very often from the Northern part of the relationship, asking if they could come and visit here. The reason for that is they know if the request comes from Belfast or Coleraine or Portadown, it’s more likely to be successful. Now all of that, that very high value placed on North-South links and cooperation by the President of Ireland in a country the size of Ireland creates a lot of smoke signals of the right kind. It is amazing how many people are highlighting or developing or promoting links North and South because it is now something that is highly valued by the President. I certainly am aware of a lot of linkings that follows on from this. It’s like dropping a particular stone and the ripples go out and there are lots of ripples.

24 Does the fact that your husband is a Protestant have any particular significance?

25I think it has been very important certainly for us in our relationship. It has made us both additionally sensitive and aware, for me, in particular, not just valueing plurilarism in the abstract but being married to a member of the Church of Ireland and all his family being Church of Ireland and a number of his family living in the North for example. All of this has been helpful in reinforcing my own commitment. I feel it is important now symbolically that the President and her husband are of two different Christian religions. In Ireland, at the level of Church leaders, these religions have become very close, there are very strong oecumenical links between the Church leaders. This is partly because they meet frequently and because they have a shared concern about sectarian violence. Very often, all four Church leaders in the North make joint efforts. At the start of this year I had the ten Church representatives in Dublin together, which included the Jewish and Mohametan leaders, all in one grouping, to underline the value of the approach of a pluralist Ireland, a really pluralist Ireland.

26 You talked about the changes in Irish society today, isn’t the fact that you have been elected a great change?

27I think so. It has obviously been an enormous boost for Irish women. It is also a change that the people of Ireland would have chosen somebody with my record and my expressed views in the Senate on all kinds of issues, over more than twenty years. I said at my inauguration that I was aware that a number of the people who had voted for me, did not necessarily share my views on a certain number of sensitive issues. Therefore, I said, we really have arrived at a certain concept of pluralism. We can disagree which each other but that does not mean that the person with whom we disagree would not be appropriate to be President of a forward-looking Ireland, an Ireland presenting a pluralist image. I think it is symbolic and it is also interesting that the Irish people have chosen somebody with such a very clear track record. Added to that, all the issues with which I am identified came up during the campaign. It was not as if people had forgotten my positions, it was a conscious choice on their part.

28 Were you elected because of the women electorate?

29That certainly was significant. What emerged from the analysis of the election was that in fact it was a very widely spread vote. It was widely spread round the country, widely spread in all social classes, but there was also the additional factor that for the first time in Irish political life women not only came to vote but in many cases, in rural Ireland in particular, women voted differently from their husbands, which was a very welcome development.

30 Why is that so?

31Because it was not an election to choose a government. This was an election to choose a President, and they felt that they could now really choose their President. It may or may not have wider significance, it’s not really for me to say. It was the fact that it was an election to choose a person to symbolize and represent Ireland abroad and to speak for the country, not in a political sense, but in that wider sense. That was certainly a factor in their decision. It may also have been that they felt that it was time to have a woman elected to the highest office...

32 What are your hopes for the future and what would like to achieve?

33There are several themes and priorities of the Presidency that I would certainly like to strengthen and develop over the next five and a half years and which we have already begun to work on.

34One is the hand of friendship to the two communities in Northern Ireland of which we have already spoken of. Another is supporting the local self-development of community groups, women’s groups and youth groups. The reason why I place such emphasis on this, is that it is all part of the local democratic build up from the ground, it is a way of countering, in a healthy way, the fact that a lot of decision-making is very centralized. Every country has this debate and dilemma. And it is also a relatively new development. Five years ago, certainly ten years ago, there would not have been the same energy invested in self-development nor much confidence in its capacity. By being so much in touch, I can put the pieces of the jigsaw together. When I am in one area I can link with another, this is again part of this linking. I link both within this part of the country and the North. I opened a very fine exhibition recently in County Clare, (in the South west of Ireland), about the Irish Famine in the last century. The people there were not aware that I had become patron of a Famine Museum in the West of Ireland with wonderful resources. That is an example of how I was able to put two bodies in touch with each other. I have this sense of being a witness to a lot of developments of that kind. I have seen myself as a force for removing barriers for women in their self-development. The energizing and the boosting of self-confidence just go on increasing. Everywhere I go women of all ages and women of very traditional backgrounds feel differently because there is a woman President. They all tell me this. It is hard to say how this changes their lives but they have much more confidence, much more a sense of “if she can do it we can do it” and I think they are involved far more in development course than they were in the past. They are involved in personal development courses, active in their communities, taking up options of mature studies in universities, taking on jobs with a self-confidence that was not there before. And I feel this is very good for the country as a whole as well as for the women of the country.

35I suppose the other area that is possible to try to link with this is this extended Irish family-link. As President, being able to visit other countries, particularly those with strong Irish links is helpful in that area. So these are the themes. The Presidency works at two levels. It works at the level above politics. There I do not talk about politics because I talk about values, so I speak the language of values and promote them rather than make policy. It also operates at the level below politics which is local development. This is very often voluntary or local community self-development or sometimes a combination of local voluntary groups supported by local authorities. At both levels there is a huge amount to be done and many invitations to do it...

36 Would you like to add a comment to our conversation?

37One of the areas we have touched upon but that we did not come back to is creativity in the arts and culture in Ireland which to me is really particularly important.

38In the theatre it is very interesting that a writer such as Brian Friels writing Dancing at Lugnasa and The Faith Healer, which has been very well received in London, is now one of the most sought after playwrights in the English-speaking world. That reflects a general strength in our theatre, not just in Dublin, but also in the regional theatre. It is also reflected in the cinema with films like The Commitments, My Left Foot, The Field, There are also films made locally but which have world-wide appeal because they are well observed in their details. And of course one thinks also of the popular musicians, the U2 and others.

39So in each of the art forms there is a wonderful creativity. I find that young artists and young writers like to be working in Ireland at the moment. That was not true twenty years ago when they wanted to get away like Joyce; now they like to be here and the complaint is that not enough of them can stay here!