Mary Bourke's election as auditor of the Law Society in Trinity College, Dublin [in 1967] was her "first great coup", according to her brother Henry. She took part in debates, distinguishing herself by winning the coveted Benchers' Trophy.
On one of her rare nights out - given that the Sacred Heart order was cloistered - Sister Joan Stephenson was invited by her former pupil to attend the auditor's inaugural address on February 3rd, 1967. The keynote speakers, as the nun recalls, were the British judge Lord Devlin and Professor H.L.A. Harte of Oxford, both of whom were published authors on the concept of law and morality. Sister Stephenson judged Professor Harte to be "totally pagan in outlook" while the judge, a Catholic, seemed to be "more Christian". The latter's thesis was that "if society was constructed of bricks made of individuals, it was no service to this society to have a man drunk in his study every night".
The inaugural address was provocative - in fact, not just a keynote speech on the night but in Mary T. W. Bourke's career. Her father, who had read it before she delivered it, "nearly had a canary" in his own words. "It was all about contraception, homosexuality, and law must be kept apart. Mary was advocating contraception or divorce, but the law was the law and must be kept separate, she maintained. I nearly had a fit. I got in touch with a man I knew very well, Canon McDonald in Easky, Co Sligo, who later became our bishop. I told him I wanted to see him badly; he told me to come over."
The canon gave him a whisky while he read the text. "He said there was nothing wrong with it and explained that she was giving this as a student . . . I was never so relieved in all my life. I remember that the boys, Henry and Aubrey, said that they didn't think Mary knew what the pill was. Perhaps she didn't - she was that innocent! And yet she could deliver this lecture in a legal sense".
"Remarkable" is how the Revd Enda McDonagh, professor of moral theology at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, has described the text. He was invited by the new auditor to speak at her Law Society inaugural, but was unable to attend. He read the speech, however, and kept it. "It was very brave, very courageous, very different, and a student speech as well," he says. "Other voices were articulating similar ideas - Labour Party members like David Thornley. But this struck at the heart of the matter in a very clear way, and set a pattern for what was to happen in the next 25 to 30 years."
Addressing the effects of non-criminal law in enforcing morality in Ireland, Mary Bourke questioned the special position afforded in de Valera's constitution to the Roman Catholic church. Whereas Irish law did not attempt to enforce Catholic morality in relation to adultery, prostitution and drunkenness, it did place an embargo on divorce, homosexuality and birth control. She submitted that the prohibition on granting a divorce should be deleted from the constitution, and the law relating to it should reflect "the public opinion of the times".
She criticised the designation of suicide as a crime, referring to recent prosecutions for attempted suicide. Homosexuality should be legalised, if public opinion so desired, she said. As for the restrictions on contraceptives, these represented a "legal infringement on the freedom on non-Catholics in this country". However, in relation to abortion, she doubted if legislation such as the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill, then under consideration in Britain, would ever reach the Irish statute books.
Referring to the effect on law of a country with strong Christian principles, she noted that the Republic's "healthy Christian climate" had not caused any notable change in attitude towards imprisonment. Was locking people up morally justified? Ireland, she submitted, should take a lead in reformulating its policy of imprisonment for non-violent crimes.
"If a man's watch is stolen, and the thief apprehended by the police, under due process of law the thief may well end up in prison," she said. "However, if the victim were asked his opinion, he would demand the return of his watch, but hardly that the culprit be locked away and segregated from society for a definite period. Rather, the average man would prefer to see (the thief) fined as a deterrent for this crime against property, thus letting "the punishment fit the crime".
At least the extensive use of the suspended sentence in Ireland was an encouraging factor, she went on. Quoting George Bernard Shaw, she said that the time had come when morality was something which could be discussed freely in Ireland without - even unconsciously - giving offence. She concluded by talking about Dora Russell, author of The Right To Be Happy, who was "not impressed by external devices for the preservation of virtue in men or women". Marriage laws, the police, the army and the navy were "the mark of human incompetence", Russell wrote.
Dr Bourke, who was present, recalls how "stunned" the retired Supreme Court judge and former TCD senator Kingsmill Moore was. "He said that he would like to live long enough to see what she would do." From that time on, her parents felt that "nothing was impossible" for their only daughter.
In Sister Stephenson's view, her former pupil had backed the "pagan" Professor Harte.
"I was dying to get a hold of her afterwards, to tell her that she was wrong. But I didn't. It was the only time that I saw her perhaps a little dazzled by the world about her. Yet she looked absolutely beautiful in a smart dress, black hair shining, in the midst of all those wizened old men".
