"She popularized the presidency within Ireland and made it something the Irish people could relate to and take pride in," says Vargo.

The Irish Diaspora

In her inaugural address, Robinson said that while she had been elected president of Ireland, she intended to represent "the extended Irish family abroad" as well.

By some estimates, there are 70 million people of Irish ancestry scattered throughout the world--only about 5 million of them in Ireland itself.

The creation of this diaspora, as Robinson calls it, began with migrations in the 17th century, and accelerated during the Famine of 1845-48. Subsequent years of economic hardship eventually forced about half the population of the island to emigrate.

In a later speech to both houses of the Irish parliament in 1995, Robinson related a story from her time at Harvard to illustrate the feelings of these "exiles" toward their homeland.

"I walked out one evening and happened to go into a Boston newsagent's shop. There, just at the back of the news stand, almost to my disbelief, was The Western People," she said. "I remember the hunger with which I read the news from home."

But the Irish government failed to perceive the deep affinity emigres hold for their homeland or recognize the diverse notions of Irishness which existed within the diaspora, Robinson said. In contrast to countries like Israel, which had successfully built ties with Jews abroad, the Irish government had not looked to "the array of people outside Ireland for whom this island is a place of origin."

Robinson made it a priority during her presidency to foster and cherish this diaspora and its inherent diversity, according to Vargo.

"President Robinson successfully reached out to Ireland's diaspora, as no president before her had done," Vargo says.

Robinson dedicated the first American memorial of the famine at Cambridge Common last summer, in front of about 3,000 of Ireland's diaspora.

During her travels abroad, Robinson made it a point to seek out Irish emigrants, from Poland to Tanzania.

"Mary Robinson became the embodiment of what Ireland represented for millions of them, as against green beer, leprechauns, or armed conflict," says Niall O'Dowd of Irish Voice, a newspaper in New York.

"She made it popular to be Irish," Vargo says.

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