Less than a year after her election, Irish President Mary
Robinson visits the IFC. She is the first woman President in
Irish history. Perhaps taking a cue from the Irish, the IFC
elects Cook County Circuit Court Judge Maureen Connors as its
first woman President. Celebrated Irish poet and author Seamus
Heaney wins the Nobel Prize. Irish President Mary Robinson
returns to the IFC to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the
Irish Famine of 1846-48—the so-called “Great Hunger.” In her
poignant and provocative speech, Robinson reminds the Irish-
Americans in attendance of the universality of suffering and the
responsibilities that come with success: “The terribly realities
of our past hunger present themselves to us as nightmare images.
The bailiff. The famine wall. The eviction. The coffin ship. And
yet, how willing are we to negotiate these past images into the
facts of present-day hunger? How ready are we to see that the
bailiff and the workhouse and the coffin ship have equally
terrible equivalents in other co