The buzz of speculation about the Presidency tells us more about the concerns of parties and pressure groups than about would-be candidates and their ambitions for the office.
Support for the candidature of John Hume has suddenly grown this week: despite the silence of Mr Hume himself, there's been a scramble to promise him overwhelming endorsement. The rush may be premature, but to say so is apt to prove unpopular. It's as if to ask what his election might mean, especially to the people of Northern Ireland, is to question his suitability for the office.
But what are we to make of the promises of support from the main political parties? What do they tell us about the parties' confidence in their own would-be candidates?
What of their determination to learn from the experience of 1990 and the confidence which flowed then from a direct election? What of Labour's promise to make a campaign of it?
We have several weeks to wait before the parties announce their final choice of candidates and let us know whether they intend to play safe or to venture outside the political family.
One way or the other, there is time to let the electorate know what choice it has to make. The President may not be, in strictly legal terms, the Head of State; he or she is, as the Constitutional Review Group has it, the personification of the State. This doesn't mean that we must burden ourselves with someone who is pompous and remote when what we need is inspiration - a joyous and spirited advance into the new century.
Some say that an office holder grows into the office they're given. The Presidency, as Mrs Robinson has just proved, is an office which, with some limitations, can be made to fit the holder.
The Irish people have shown that they are also prepared to change, and to welcome change that seems in tune with the spirit of the time.
In Mrs Robinson's case, the proposal was put by Dick Spring and supported, in the first instance, by Proinsias De Rossa and others on the left. The movement broadened and deepened as it grew.
Mrs Robinson was endorsed, not by a clear majority of those who voted in 1990, but with a stronger combination of first and second preferences than either of the other candidates could muster.
Change had been proposed both before and after the election, not only by the political leaders who sought her candidature but by Mrs Robinson herself and her close advisers.
Once in office, she was as good as her word. Not only did she convince us that change was desirable; from the moment of her election she set about showing how it could be done.
Not once, for the cameras; but again and again, whether the spotlight was on her or not.
And not just at home but in Northern Ireland, Britain and the rest of Europe, in the US and Africa.
It was not simply that she spoke, and spoke fluently in several languages, for the people of Ireland; she spoke to us, about conditions endured by impoverished millions in a lopsided world and by those among us who are at risk of going unseen and unheard.
This was more than any other holder of the office had done; more than any of us had expected any holder of the office could or would do.
If people had been asked before she took her place in Aras an Uachtarain whether Ireland was likely to choose as President a young and decidedly liberal woman, most would have said "No". A few may have taken a braver view: "Maybe . . . but not in our time."
Now, here was someone unexpected - a young, articulate woman, at home in the modern world - doing unexpected things. Surprising not only those who'd been used to the old ways but many others who were equally limited by the new.
She drew attention to people who had so far gone unnoticed: not only those who needed help but those who worked to help their communities, with little recognition or public encouragement.
She worked on projects which were too arduous to be fashionable, like learning to speak Irish. She wasn't afraid of provoking controversy, as when she chose to shake hands with Gerry Adams.
She took risks, especially in the interests of the poor and hungry of central Africa, but made one of her few miscalculations at home when she decided to address the assembled TDs and senators in Leinster House.
Here she ignored the reality that advice to the other Houses of the Oireachtas about issues on which they worked daily must sound redundant, if not patronising.
Overall, though, there were few complaints. Indeed, within a year of her arrival in office, we were beginning to wonder why we hadn't thought of this long ago.
As Mrs Robinson herself said, the Presidency was a resource that hadn't been used. Now, the great majority of the electorate - including those who had voted against her - approved of the use to which she put it.
What had happened was that those who had proposed Mrs Robinson had taken the unusual step of first asking themselves what they wanted the Presidency to be and the President to do. Then they set about finding someone who fitted the bill.
Mrs Robinson was that candidate. She recognised, and accepted, the limits which the Constitution imposed on the office. She also freed it from the constraints which political convention and the habits of 52 years had added to the constitutional limits.
She changed during her seven years in office. So did the Presidency, though not as radically as, at times, her performance seemed to suggest. It is still far from an ideal home for a politician who savours the active life.
Now, two temptations have to be resisted.
One is to allow ourselves to slide again into the habit of generations and choose someone who is solemnly praised as statesmanlike but, in truth, is considered politically dispensable.
The other is to pretend that all we have to do is to follow willy nilly the lead given in 1990 and attempt to recreate the current Presidency by finding someone who, as nearly as possible, resembles Mrs Robinson.
These are temptations to be avoided. To return to the old ways would be to raise levels of cynicism that are already dangerously high - and seem likely to remain so until it's clear that such issues as political funding are being taken seriously. It would also ignore the lessons of 1990: the importance of asking what we want the Presidency to be and the President to do in the next seven years.
The Constitutional Review Group, which reported more than a year ago, observed that the President, freed from executive functions - and the divisiveness which political activity would necessarily entail - serves as "a personification of the State".
"From the President," says the report, "the people seek a reflection of their highest values and aspirations."