Born Mary Therese Winifred Bourke in Ballina, County Mayo in 1944, Mary Robinson was the daughter of two medical doctors. The Bourke family has been in Mayo since the thirteenth century. One ancestor was a leading activist in the Irish National Land League in Mayo and the Irish Republican Brotherhood; an uncle, Sir Paget John Bourke, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II after a career as a judge in the Colonial Service; while another relative was a Roman Catholic nun.