THE TWO Marys – Robinson and O’Rourke – will be pitted against each other this year in the competitive pre-Christmas book market.

And yet another Mary – former president McAleese – has been listed by Mammy O’Rourke to launch her much-awaited memoirs.

(Although at the moment, all we can get from the unusually tight-lipped former FF minister is that the book is “interesting” and will have lots of interesting photographs.)

Her opus is called Just Mary and it goes forth into the market following its launch on October 18th in the National Gallery.

Meanwhile, former president Robinson, who retired before her term of office was complete to take up a job with the United Nations, is set to launch on September 13th. Working title for her book is Everybody Matters.

Yet another Mary came to mind during the week when a reader sent in a photograph of US democrat Patty Murray, the long-serving senator for Washington.

She looks uncannily like former Fianna Fáil minister Mary Hanafin. But the likeness, one suspects, does not stray beyond the physical and into the political.

Patty was named this week on a list of America’s “best 11 senators for gay rights”