Editing Nicholas Robinson (historian)

{{Short description|Irish historian, solicitor and cartoonist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Use Hiberno-English|date=October 2022}}
{{BLP sources|date=May 2016}}
{{Infobox person
| name         = Nicholas Robinson
| image        =
| birth_name   = Nicholas Kenneth Robinson 
| birth_date   = {{birth date and age|1946|2|9|df=y}}
| birth_place  = [[Amsterdam]], Netherlands
| death_date   =
| death_place  =
| nationality  = [[Irish people|Irish]]
| spouse       = {{marriage|[[Mary Robinson|Mary Bourke]]|1970}}
| children     = 3
| alma_mater   = [[Trinity College Dublin]]
|}}
'''Nicholas Kenneth Robinson''' (born 9 February 1946) is an Irish [[author]], [[historian]], [[solicitor]] and cartoonist who is the husband of the 7th [[President of Ireland]] and former [[United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights]], [[Mary Robinson]].<ref>[http://newarrivals.nlb.gov.sg/itemdetail.aspx?bid=7820480 ''Library Journal,'' quoted at National Library Board of Singapore website/] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110823042109/http://newarrivals.nlb.gov.sg/itemdetail.aspx?bid=7820480 |date=2011-08-23 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Robinson |first=Mary |date=2013 |title=Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice |location=New York |publisher=Walker Publishing Company |isbn=978-0-8027-7964-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/everybodymatters0000robi }}</ref><ref>[http://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/director/9588854/nicholas-robinson Mr Nicholas Kenneth Robinson] Companies in the UK. Retrieved: 21 February 2014.</ref>

==Background==
Robinson was born in [[Amsterdam]], Netherlands, in 1946, to a wealthy middle-class Anglican family. He was born to Howard and Lucy Robinson, the third in a family of four boys. His father was an accountant who founded the [[Anglo Irish Bank|City of Dublin Bank]] and was a prominent [[freemason]] of the [[Grand Lodge of Ireland]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/the-wedding-in-the-airport-church-1.102391|title=The wedding in the airport church |accessdate=12 November 2017| work=The Irish Times |  date=2 September 1997}}</ref> The Robinson family had been coopers associated with the brewing business of the [[Guinness family]]. Nicholas's grandfather was a coal importer.

While studying for a law degree at [[Trinity College Dublin]], he began a relationship with his future wife [[Mary Robinson]] (''née'' Bourke), who would later become the [[President of Ireland]]. With his wife Mary, he has one daughter and two sons, and six grandchildren.

==Career==
Robinson has helped establish numerous bodies, among them the [[Irish Architectural Archive]] (with [[Edward McParland]]), the [[Birr, County Offaly|Birr]] Scientific and Heritage Foundation, the [[Irish Landmark Trust]] (of which he is a Trustee, ''ex officio'' President & Patron),<ref>[http://www.irishlandmark.com/about_us/current_trustees.asp Trustees – Irish Landmark Trust] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081002055257/http://www.irishlandmark.com/about_us/current_trustees.asp |date=2 October 2008 }}</ref> and (with his wife Mary) the Irish Centre for European Law at Trinity College.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060806002247/http://www.realizingrights.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=75 Our Board – Mary Robinson – Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> He spent 30 years curating a collection of social and political caricatures which he presented to the [[Library of Trinity College Dublin]] in 1996.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Robinson Collection of Caricatures |url=https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/collections/c247ds08x?locale=en |access-date=2024-10-02 |website=digitalcollections.tcd.ie}}</ref>

==Works==
His books include:
* ''Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland'', with the [[Knight of Glin]] and David Griffin (Irish Architectural Archive/Irish Georgian Society, 1988)
* ''Edmund Burke: a Life in Caricature'' (Yale University Press, 1996)
* ''Caricature and the Irish: satirical prints from the Library of Trinity College Dublin, c.1780–1830'' (Four Courts Press, 2024)

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* Olivia O'Leary & Helen Burke, ''Mary Robinson: The Authorised Biography'', Lir/Hodder & Stoughton, 1998 ({{ISBN|0-340-71738-6}})

== External links ==

* [https://www.tcd.ie/library/research-collections/named-collections/r.php#Robinson The Robinson Collection of Caricatures] at the [[Library of Trinity College Dublin]], digitised [https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/collections/c247ds08x?locale=en here]
* Exhibition ''[https://www.tcd.ie/library/exhibitions/tcdtoons/ Drawing Your Attention: Four Centuries of Political Caricatures]'' by the Library of Trinity College Dublin
{{Spouses of the president of Ireland}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Nicholas}}
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin]]
[[Category:Irish Anglicans]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish historians]]
[[Category:Irish solicitors]]
[[Category:Spouses of presidents of Ireland]]
[[Category:1946 births]]
[[Category:Irish architectural historians]]