While unable to actively direct the national agenda, Robinson used the prestige of her office to "signal issues of importance" with her presence, Walsh says.

She met with AIDS patients to draw attention to the plight of the virus' victims and attended the centenary of the Women's Suffrage Movement in New Zealand.

She was committed to the peace process in Northern Ireland, but raised a furor by shaking hands with Gerry Adams, the president of the Northern Ireland political party Sinn Fein, which has suspected links to the terrorist Irish Republican Army.

She did not confine her activities to Irish affairs alone. Robinson used the platform of the Irish presidency to advance her long-standing concern for human rights.

She was the first foreign head of state to visit Somalia after famine struck in 1992 and she was among the first to go to Rwanda after the 1994 genocide there.

But her first priority was always providing a voice for "those who might otherwise be marginalized from the mainstream of political, social and economic decision-making," in the words of one of her prime ministers, John Bruton.

And her efforts produced results.

In 1995, Irish voters approved a referendum to legalize divorce, winning over the opposition of the Pope in a predominantly Catholic country.

Her term also saw the liberalization of censorship laws and further separation of the Catholic church from the state.

While Robinson did not play a direct role in any of these moves, her leadership is credited with emboldening reformers.

"[Robinson] helped to lead a new and modern Ireland," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56 (D-Mass.), an Irish-American.

But she decided not to run for reelection, telling RTE, the state-run radio network, that the office depended on vitality, and "I've given what I could."

She retired to approval ratings rising above 90 percent--noteworthy considering she had been elected without even a plurality of the first-choice vote.

Observers agree that Robinson left the office of president changed forever.

"It would have been unthinkable for some of her predecessors to go around talking to women in the very deprived areas of Dublin," says Walsh. "No one would have asked."