Emer McLysaght: I often wonder what impact having a female president had on my generation of little girls

Where is the Mary Robinson tapestry? It’s a question I’ve asked many times over the past 15 or so years. You remember the Mary Robinson tapestry? A likeness of our former president woven into a Persian rug which sat for years in the window of a shop on Dublin’s Dame Street. When the shop was repurposed in the mid-late 2000s the portrait vanished from the public eye. It’s an icon of modern Irish popular culture, but where is it?
I was reminded of the Robinson tapestry recently when Galway actor Nicola Coughlan addressed the Time 100 Next gala in New York City. “I don’t want to brag but the Irish have beat you to it by some way,” Coughlan told those assembled and said she hoped they were on track to elect their first woman US president. She did go on to brag a little, explaining that Robinson was elected as Ireland’s president in 1990. Coughlan said she’s admired Robinson since she was “a little girl” and she echoed Robinson’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.
Robinson is now 80 years old and is the chairwoman of The Elders, a group of independent global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela and which counts Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel among its current members. She’s an extraordinary Irish figure and even in her ninth decade she continues to work tirelessly for peace and climate justice. I often wonder what impact having a woman president had on my generation of little girls, and I now worry how missing out on their first female president will affect all of America’s children.
Certainly, the tapestry image of her has since gained cult status. A friend used to have the image on her phone case. You can buy tea-towels, badges and other nostalgic trinkets inspired by the image of Robinson in her pink shoulder padded blazer and black polo neck, her curly 1990s hairdo forever immortalised in thread.
The rug shop was called Pars Gallery and it sat adjacent to the large Philips electrical store that overlooked the corner of Dame Street and George’s Street. Both stores were contained within the Montague Burton building, which was erected around 1930 to house a Burton’s Tailors store. Where the Robinson tapestry once stood is now a large Spar, known colloquially as “Gay Spar” because of its proximity to legendary gay bar The George. The “Gay Spar” moniker has been adopted by the owners of the shop itself.
A Totally Dublin article from 2005 is one of the only solid sources online about the tapestry. Pars Oriental Carpet Gallery opened in 1990, the same year of Robinson’s election to Áras an Uachtaráin, and the gallery owner commissioned an Iranian woman to weave the piece as a gift to the new president. It took almost three months to complete. However, Robinson was not allowed to accept gifts while in office so the rug was put on display in a gilt frame in the shop window instead. Repeated offers to buy it led to the “Not for Sale” sign attached to the piece which remained on permanent display until Pars Gallery closed.
There is a Pars Gallery in the UK which has been contacted about the Robinson tapestry several times – me among those inquiring – but says it is unconnected and has no knowledge of its whereabouts.
The 2024 Mrs Robinson documentary film is a deeply charming portrait of the life and times of our Mary, but no mention or shot of the tapestry made the cut. A source connected to the documentary told me that when the rug was mentioned to the former president, she had only a passing awareness of its existence which implies that the piece is not in the personal Robinson archives.
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On a tip that the tapestry may once have been displayed in the Little Museum of Dublin I followed the scent of ageing carpet fibres but once again hit a dead end. Trevor White, founder of the museum, confirmed that they’ve never had it in their collection but would be eager to show it if it ever pops up.
Maybe the most fitting place for the tapestry, if it is ever located and offered for public display, is in Gay Spar. Mary Robinson has a long history of fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. It was she who signed the Bill decriminalising homosexuality in 1993 after leading David Norris’s legal fight at the European Court of Human Rights. In 2022 when the store put a “Happy Pride, from Gay Spar” in its window, a tweet noted “The Mary Robinson rug would be so proud”.