Alan in Belfast: Mrs Robinson – a portrait of a world leader with purpose and poise (QFT preview + Q&A on Tuesday 30 July, on general release from Friday 23 August)

Nine years ago, shortly after going freelance, I helped handle the media at a series of events marking an organisation’s 50th anniversary. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby had flown across to deliver a sermon in Belfast Cathedral – minus his hearing aid – and displayed remarkable grace with some impertinent and irrelevant questions from one of the journalists.

But the guest who really stands out was former Irish President, Mary Robinson. She delivered pin-sharp answers to the waiting journalists’ questions, pivoting their attention to the issues that mattered to her, and focussing on specific aspects she wanted to shine light on. Professional, with purpose and poise, and an easy manner that belied her status on this island and beyond.

Directed by Aoife Kelleher, a new film Mrs Robinson presents a portrait of Ireland’s seventh president, making good use of family cine footage of the young Mary Bourke and her four brothers. It’s an affectionate documentary that examines her journey from shy law student to equality campaigner and Irish President, from United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to climate justice advocate and her role as Chair of The Elders.

A year spent at Harvard in the late 1960s after graduating from Trinity coincided with student protests against US military action in Vietnam and the assassination of Martin Luther King. Robinson’s sense of searching for justice seems profound. Time and again, her practice of seeking out youthful voices is highlighted – “young people taking responsibility and making a difference [without] waiting their turn” – in a bid to make issues intergenerational. Whether at home or abroad, she’s portrayed as a keen listener and a problem solver.

While largely uncritical, the film does briefly pause to consider Robinson’s brief visit in late 2018 to Dubai to see her (then) friend Princess Haya and witness that her daughter Sheikha Latifa was still alive. Her involvement and subsequent testimony was less than astute. Robinson refers to being “tricked”, notes that supposedly private photographs from the day-long visit were made public, regrets what she said in a BBC interview following the visit, and admits not taking better advice at the time.

Earlier in her career, serving as an Irish Senator for nearly 20 years, Robinson is seen to be more canny, making legal arguments and lobbying to reform Ireland’s laws on contraception but not joining the ‘contraceptive train’ that drew attention to the issue. Whether challenging public attitudes and legal reform around contraception, divorce or homosexuality, Robinson was at the heart of Ireland’s social change. With a light left shining in the window of Áras an Uachtaráin, her presidency also brought a focus on remembering the diaspora and the reasons they had for leaving the island.

Robinson is also open about regretting her premature departure from the presidency to become UN High Commissioner rather than seek a second term of office. Early in the film we hear how Robinson’s parents disapproved of her marriage to protestant lawyer and cartoonist Nicholas. She explains why she took her husband’s surname rather than staying Bourke. Her concern for or deference to the wishes of her husband seems to underpin her decision to leave the Áras in 1997, one of few occasions he didn’t stay three steps behind.

Underpinned by a beautiful score, Mrs Robinson is a fond portrait of a force of nature, an advocate who is not afraid of emotion, and who aims for a high standard of moral leadership amongst public representatives (and admits at least one personal failure).

There’s a preview screening of Mrs Robinson followed by a Q&A with the film’s subject, chaired by Kathy Clugston, in Queen’s Film Theatre on Tuesday 30 July at 18:30. The film goes on general release on Friday 23 August.