When Mary Robinson was running for President in 1990 my four-year-old daughter used to call her Mary Robinhood. While she didn't exactly rob from the rich to give to the poor during her presidency, she has through her seven years of service to ordinary citizens, remained true to the misnomer. If Diana was a "people's princess", Mary Robinson was a people's president.
Comparisons between the two women - as representatives of their nation - are unavoidable, given the weeks that are in it. Both "rocked" the system they inherited and challenged the accredited notions of sovereignty. Mary Robinson showed that you could be the First Citizen of the Republic while extending a hand across the border to unionists (she opposed the original Anglo-Irish Agreement as unfair to unionists), embracing the migrant Irish communities abroad, and even floating (if not endorsing) the "question" of re-entry to the Commonwealth. Diana scuttled the British fetish of absolutist-Anglican sovereignty by opening the monarchy to the diverse peoples and creeds that make it up and by opening her own heart, finally, to a non-British "alien" - a Muslim Egyptian. (As one mourner at her funeral remarked, "She blew the lid on the monarchy!" Or as another added: "She was a multi-cultural princess for a multi-cultural Britain.") In their different ways, both women expressed the need for overdue constitutional changes in their respective nations, changes that will surely come in the near future as the Republic prepares to redefine its self-identity, enshrined in Articles 2 and 3 of our Constitution, and Tony Blair's New Labour proposes to reform the House of Lords, introduce a Bill of Rights, devolve power to local government and conduct referenda on regional assemblies in Scotland and Wales.
Both had dreams. Diana (her brother tells us) dreamt of escaping from "England" - with its media and monarchy - and reinventing herself. Mary Robinson dreamt of "a fifth province" where Ireland might overcome the divisions of its existing provinces and reimagine itself anew. Both were national emblems who managed (as only symbols can) to comprise the most extraordinary paradoxes. Diana's contradictions have been well rehearsed in the last weeks - aristocrat and rebel, model mother and jet-setting lover, media icon and shy recluse, epitome of privilege and fighter for the powerless.
Mary Robinson's paradoxes (at least in an Irish context) are equally telling. A liberal secular feminist who praised the heroic work of nuns and women at home. A dedicated Catholic in a mixed marriage, who supported the legalisation of contraception and divorce. An enlightenment rationalist with a poetic imagination (she loves to quote Yeats, Heaney, Durcan and Boland). A straight-backed Trinity don who invited us all to come and dance with her. A cool-headed legal pragmatist moved to tears at the plight of famine victims. A champion of local "participatory" democracy who showed how "representative" democracy can excel at both national and international levels. A committed social democrat who transcended ideologies. A woman with a common touch (securing unprecedented popular support) who remained always that little bit untouchable. A defender of unionist sensitivities who shook hands with Gerry Adams. Someone who secured one of the most prestigious positions of the United Nations without ever taking her eye off the small streets of Ballina and Allihies where it all began.
(Such paradoxes are, of course, productive, reminding us of Kierkegaard's claim that "paradox is the passion of thought" for it makes us rethink received ideas.) By shaking up our habitual ideas about how our national figures should behave, both Irish President and British princess extended the horizons of nationhood. Mary Robinson taught us that Irishness could legitimately include multiple identities - local, regional, national and transnational. Her presidential path from Allihies to the UN succeeded in persuading Irish citizens that they could remain loyal to their own place while becoming citizens of the world.
In so doing she succeeded, arguably, in doing more than any other person on this island to change people's thinking about the North. She amplified the notion of Irishness to embrace not only those resident in the Republic, but also those north of the Border and the Irish in Britain (six million) and elsewhere who wished to reclaim their Irish identity. In short, she reminded us that identity is a series of ever-widening concentric circles.
This was symbolised by the famous "candle in the window" which - though much derided - staked a revolutionary claim for revised nationhood. Henceforth, our President was suggesting, the Irish nation could legitimately include the migrant nation beyond its borders - which in effect meant you could now legitimately consider yourself Irish and British or American or Australian or whatever. Mary Robinson reintroduced the hyphen into Irish politics, exploding the confines of exclusivist nationalism.
She de-territorialised sovereignty - showing it had less to do with territory than people. In this respect, Robinson was a post-nationalist before her time. Or to put it in another way, she was a true republican. Someone who believed in the primacy of people over power, faithful to Cicero's original formula: res publica res populi est.
This is, of course, where the analogies with Diana break down. Mary Robinson was elected. She was president of a republic, Diana was princess of a monarchy. Mrs Robinson was in office by virtue of popular suffrage, Diana (through no fault of her own) by virtue of hereditary blood-birth and marriage. This difference is crucial, for while both women may be said to have captured the popular imagination, they did so in opposite ways. Diana was an icon reflecting people's unconscious images back to them, as in a mirror or screen. Mary Robinson was a symbol projecting a vision of something yet to come.
Diana's passage from this life had a tragic edge of ending to it: the mourning was not only for a person but for the dream of an empire that is fading - Scotland and Wales go to the polls this week and major constitutional review is on the cards at Westminister. Mary Robinson's passage from the Irish Presidency to her UN post marks a new beginning - not just for her in person but for the nation she leaves behind which will have to fill her place and realise her vision.
That is why the post of president is so important in our republic just now and why our politicians would have done us a grave disservice to treat it as a matter of political expediency rather than of popular suffrage. I think John Hume knew this too and that, along with his commitment to seeing through the peace process in the North, it was a factor in his decision not to accept the invitation to accept the Presidency "uncontested".
As Ireland and Britain sit down over the coming months to re-negotiate a new constitutional settlement for these islands, we may be grateful to the princess and the President of our respective peoples for preparing us - in their different ways - to re-imagine ourselves anew.
Dr Richard Kearney is Professor of Philosophy at UCD