Biography & Memoir
Mary Robinson
Everybody Matters
12:30pm | Friday 14 September 2012Tickets: | Duration: | Venue: |
£N/A | 1 Hour | Blenheim Palace: The Orangery |
Click here for this year's events
Buy The Books event id:315
This was an Oxford Literary Festival 2012 Event.
Click here for this year's Events and Information
Mary Robinson became the first woman President of Ireland in 1990. She is one of the most inspiring women of the modern age and has spent her life in pursuit of a fairer world. Robinson will reveal what lies behind the vision, strength and determination that has characterised her life and achievements and which she has now committed to print in her memoir Everybody Matters, published during the festival. She describes her upbringing, how her personal convictions led her into conflict with her parents and how she helped to legalise contraception in staunchly Catholic Ireland.
As an academic, legislator and barrister she sought to use law as an instrument for social change, arguing landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court in Luxembourg as well as in the Irish courts. As President she is credited with enhancing the image of Ireland and placing it firmly on the international stage as a modern country with a strong focus on humanitarian issues.
After seven years as President, she spent five years as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She established Realizing Rights in 2002 which came to a planned end in 2010. Robinson now heads her own foundation, Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, which seeks global justice for poor and marginalised people affected by climate change. Among her many awards and honours are the US Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Indira Ghandi and Sydney peace prizes. She is also honorary president of Oxfam International and a member of the Elders, an independent group of global leaders working for peace and human rights that includes Kofi Annan and President Jimmy Carter.