Sir, – I remember my father, an emigrant worker in Britain for many years, loved Val Doonican, less for his music than for how his genial personality and phenomenal success on television across the UK helped show the Irish in a new light.
He said through the 1960s and 1970s Val helped the Irish in Britain to walk tall in an environment that could at times be hostile to them. He was one of ours, the British loved him and it helped to thaw many a frosty situation.
For that alone he should be fondly and gratefully remembered. – Yours, etc,
TOM ROWLEY
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Sutton,
Dublin 13.