State Papers: Trinity academics 'furious' over failure to be invited to Mary Robinson inauguration

Mary Robinson outside Aras an Uachtaran on the day of her inauguration as president. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Academics at Trinity College Dublin were furious at the perceived insult from the Charles Haughey-led government over its failure to invite the head of the university to the inauguration of Mary Robinson as President of Ireland in 1990.

The provost of Trinity, Willam A Watts, wrote to the chief of protocol in the Department of Foreign Affairs four days after the historic ceremony marking the election of Ireland’s first female president to complain that the college’s chancellor, Frank O’Reilly, had not been invited to the event.