Former President Mary Robinson was forced to take "heavy" sleeping tablets in her first year as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a new book reveals.

In a memoir to be published this week and serialised by a Sunday newspaper, Ms Robinson detailed the pressures of the post.

She said she felt depressed and exhausted in 1997 after returning from a trip to Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa.

On a return trip to Ireland her family expressed concerns about her health, with her brother Ollie warning that she was straying into "nervous breakdown territory".

Ms Robinson was elected President in 1990 but resigned shortly before her term of office was up in 1997 to take up the post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

She said then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan put severe pressure on her in a meeting in New York to take up the post almost immediately.

"I wish I had insisted on serving out my full term as President of Ireland," she wrote.

"It did not occur to me in September 1997 that I might leave some people with the impression that the presidency was less important to me than a United Nations job.

"That was never the case."

'Everybody Matters' is the title of her new book which will be formally launched in the Ballina Arts Centre on Monday evening next, September 17^th.

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny will be the guest of Honour for the occasion.