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THESE ISLES: Mary Robinson (b.1944), a human rights lawyer, served as Ireland’s first female president from 1990 to 1997, a transformative period during which homosexuality was decriminalised and contraception and divorce legalised. 1/7

She was a key figure in an era when Ireland was becoming less socially conservative. Its ‘Celtic tiger’ economy also began to take off from the mid-1990s. Later she became United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 1997-2002. 2/7

She declared at the outset that her goals were ‘to open up Ireland and separate Catholic teaching from aspects of the criminal law and therefore reform the law on contraceptives, legalise homosexuality and change the constitutional ban on divorce’. 4/7

She won the presidency as an independent, although nominated by the Labour Party and supported by the Green Party and Workers’ Party. She was an exceptionally popular president and regularly achieved polling approval ratings above 90%. 5/7

The constitutional ban on abortion was softened in 1992, homosexual sex decriminalised in 1993 and divorce legalised in 1995 after a referendum. 6/7