More tributes have been paid to Prof Anthony Clare, the Irish psychiatrist and broadcaster who was credited with helping to transform the reputation of the psychiatric profession through his groundbreaking radio interviews and books.
Prof Clare, who was 64, died in Paris at the weekend just weeks before he was to retire from his job as a consultant at the St Edmundsbury psychiatric unit in Lucan.
He was a working psychiatrist, as well as a prolific writer and broadcaster best known for hosting the BBC Radio 4 series In the Psychiatrist's Chair, where he used empathy and insight to elicit highly personal revelations from public figures.
Long before he found a radio audience, while studying at University College Dublin in the 1960s, Prof Clare's skill as a gifted communicator was apparent.
"He was a star at UCD," said Dr Jim Lucey, a consultant psychiatrist at St Patrick's Hospital, Dublin. "I don't know anybody who could identify a more fluent man. He had a wonderful facility for language and words."
His 1976 book, Psychiatry in Dissent, influenced a generation of professionals, said Patricia Casey, professor of psychiatry at UCD and the Mater hospital.
"Psychiatry in Dissent dealt with all of the controversial areas, from electro-convulsive therapy to this issue of 'does mental illness exist?' . . .
"It was released when you had the One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nestimage of psychiatrists, that all we do is fill people with drugs and cut their brains out. He was the first to address the controversies, to respond to criticism in an accessible but erudite manner."
For 19 years, until 2001, Prof Clare managed to extract more than the usual biographical details from those who consented to be interviewed for In the Psychiatrist's Chair.
Yesterday, Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer said: "Anthony Clare had a unique interviewing style and In The Psychiatrist's Chairwas a gold-standard Radio 4 programme. He was perceptive, unafraid and yet courteous. It was a potent mix."
Among his published works were three volumes based on the Radio 4 series, books about men, psychotherapy and suicide, and Depression and How To Survive Itco-written with comedian Spike Milligan.
He also hosted the Channel 4 programme After Darkduring the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The programme's editor, Sebastian Cody, said yesterday he was "corruscatingly intelligent".
His broadcasting career ran parallel to senior roles at the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, and at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College.
"He brought psychiatry out of the hospital and showed that even those living such apparently happy and successful lives had problems too," said writer and broadcaster Prof Adrian Fulham.
Prof Clare returned to Dublin in the 1980s, where he took up senior positions at Trinity College and St Patrick's Hospital. He was a powerful advocate for more funding for research and to encourage young psychiatrists, said St Patrick's Dr Lucey.
"Ireland was a different place in the 1980s. There were no opportunities and in psychiatry it was particularly grim.
"He encouraged the governors of St Patrick's to give research grants to young registrars, and I got one of those. He gave many people their start," said Dr Lucey.
Prof Clare is survived by his wife, Jane Hogan, and seven children. His oldest daughter, Rachel, said yesterday that her father's death was completely unexpected.
Prof Clare's removal will be held tomorrow from Fanagan's Funeral Home, Aungier Street, to St Mary's Church, Lucan, arriving at 5.30pm.
A private funeral will be held on Saturday.