Perhaps more than any other person, Mary Robinson dominated the early 1990s in the Republic. Like her or hate her, you couldn't get away from her and as there is nothing Irish people like more than a good political read, it was only a matter of time before books about her started flooding the shelves. To date two Robinson tomes have been published, but this week for the first time, the official story came out. Written by Olivia O'Leary and Helen Burke, Mary Robinson: The Authorised Biography is here, complete with glossy photos of Mary on the beach, Mary on honeymoon and of course Mary at the Aras.
While political pundits knew for some time who had been asked to write the biography, it was not general knowledge. When the authorship was made known, it was perhaps Olivia O'Leary, able presenter of current affairs programmes such as Prime Time and Questions and Answers, who was the most immediately recognisable. It was however, Dr Helen Burke, an academic of some stature and Professor Emeritus of social policy and social work at UCD, who first scored the commission some 25 years ago.
"I was invited to a dinner party of some mutual friends in Sandymount and Mary and I were seated beside each other at one end of the table. She was a lawyer and young senator at the time and was in the middle of some very important social policy case. Of course I was trying to get a handle on it because it would give me so much kudos with the students to get the update on the case, hot from the star lawyer.
"When suddenly our host who was at the top of the table said `Up at this end of the table we're talking about what we want to do when we retire'. So out of my gut, I said, `Well, I'd like to write Mary Robinson's biography'."
Many years on, in 1994, Helen was called to Aras an Uachtarain for a "rather formal luncheon" and asked to write the authorised biography. "At the very end I said to her `President, do you remember that dinner party when I said I'd like to write your biography?' and she threw her head back and laughed in that way she has and said `Why else in the name of goodness do you think I asked you?' ."
From that point, right through and after Mary Robinson's term in office, Helen Burke would go to the Park and interview the president. "Mary would usually be in her jeans, or else looking terribly smart if she was going off somewhere afterwards. Of course, I was always in my best clothes anyway." Over the years there were exhaustive interviews about every aspect of Mary Robinson's life - her childhood, her days in a French finishing school, her role as a campaigning lawyer and of course, about the various ups and downs of being Ireland's first truly modern president.
"I do think she was being frank and I basically think she has huge integrity. I also got the feeling that she found it terribly hard because she's deeply private. That's why I hope the book reflects how open she was . . . I think she would have been delighted if it had been a solely political biography and I used to say to her `Look, you picked the wrong woman for that'. I think she was delighted when a political journalist came on board."
Olivia O'Leary joined the project last year and Helen Burke has nothing but praise for her co-author. First and foremost because, given the secrecy that surrounded the authorship of the book, it was vital to have someone to "Really clash heads with. Academics write books slowly because we're frightfully meticulous and we don't have a whole lot of time. I spend my life on committees up in UCD.
"I was also really blocking on the extent of the political interviews - I knew we'd have to interview every politician at length - but of course that was nothing to Olivia. Of course, her knowledge was vital too; she had lived through it whereas I was the academic who would be looking it up in books. So we brought totally different things to it and it worked very well. It was like a made marriage in a way."
Of course there is always the danger with authorised biographies that the subject will be whitewashed and touched up with such vigour that there is little sight left of the fallible human being. It is this type of criticism that was levelled at the book on Tuesday's Tonight With Vincent Browne show on RTE Radio 1. Dr Burke is quick to spot the dangers herself. "I hope it's not hagiography. There is definitely a danger of getting sycophantic, not because I knew her so well but because I admired her an awful lot. She's also been part of my life now for four years or more. I think that if you'd thought she was terrible, as some of the people on that show seemed to, you'd have got a very different book."
Perhaps the book's greatest weapon in fighting allegations of sycophancy is the many interviews that let Robinson's fans and foes speak for themselves. There are fine quotes from people such as Maura O'Dea of Cherish, the single mothers' organisation, of which Robinson was president for many years, and David Norris, whose case she took to the European courts. But extensive use is also made of interviews with politicians such as Dick Spring, the then leader of the Labour Party, who is frank in his criticisms of certain elements of her career, and Ruairi Quinn, the present leader, who at one point describes her as "clinical, cold and distant, a political sole trader".
"That was the most fascinating thing - to hear about what actually happened - both from her and all these other people. I think it was a lot easier for her once she was no longer in the job. The office did put its constraints on her.
"She didn't have any editorial authority over us but the agreement was she could correct matters of fact which was terribly useful. If she disagreed with our interpretation of things, then we reflected both views, hers and ours. So that was very fair. Having said that, as two human beings, or three as we ended up, you did respect people's sensitivities."
Quite aside from the inside information that came out of her research, Helen also found herself increasingly fascinated by the clear consistency in Mary Robinson's life and career. She disagrees furiously with those critics who insist that Robinson took up issues such as emigration as they became trendy, and cites her inaugural speech as auditor of the Law Society in Trinity as one of the most interesting elements of the books contents. "It wasn't just a student speech - she was laying out her life's work. She did shape her career and she picked all the sort of issues that she highlighted in her presidency. There was the David Norris case, there was the whole struggle for family planning in the Senate, there was the Airey case for civil legal aid.
"She was so committed to people that were on the margins right from the very beginning; there was a real consistency in her life. She thinks things through and she sticks with things. She'll stick with the UN too, she'll make it work."
Mary Robinson: the Authorised Biography by Olivia O'Leary and Helen Burke is published by Lir (an imprint of Hodder and Staughton) priced £17.99 in UK.