The wise agony aunt, dispensing her advice on the much-lamented Jacobs radio programme.

For me however, growing up beside her home in Donnybrook, alas now also gone, she was a much-loved neighbour, a warm and friendly woman and someone who would help you in any way that she could.

As a young Cub Scout, during Bob A Job Week, hers was among the first houses you would call to.

She would always give you a job and pay you well for it.

This would invariably set the standard for others to follow. After her regular Frankie Byrne, a generous lady house parties we would call to collect the empty mineral bottles bringing them to the local shops and making a small fortune. Anyone down on their luck knew they could call on Frankie and that they would be looked after. Despite her undoubted political leanings . . . the opposite to mine . . . she would regularly dispense her advice and knowledge on politics to me in a warm and generous manner.

Sadly, that warm-hearted, gentle and much-loved Frankie was somewhat missing from many of the media reports during the last week . . . just as the crowds of people who attended her parties were missing from her funeral.

I don't know what value there was for our society in making public, matters that Frankie wanted private. But I do know that I will always recall Frankie Byrne as a great lady, a good neighbour and a much-missed member of the Donnybrook community.

Cllr Dermot Lacey, 66 Beech Hill Drive, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.

Delevan got it wrong on Dev too SOME things never change and following Richard Delevan's litany of factual errors in his critique of Noam Chomsky, his article last week comparing Ariel Sharon and de Valera follows in the same vein.

His description of de Valera as a man with "more than a whiff of personal corruption" is profoundly untrue. Like him or love him, as the cliche goes, it is well established that Dev's personal life was even more austere than most of his political contemporaries. As president he repeatedly refused increments in his state salary and so poor were his personal finances on completion of his second term as president that there were real concerns about his ability to fund his last days in Linden Nursing Home.

Equally, whatever about his week-long military career which is also extremely well documented there is no evidence or suggestions that de Valera was responsible for or contrived in the murder of even one unarmed combatant or civilian, not even one.

Indeed, to my knowledge no single atrocity carried out during the conflicts on this island in the last 300 years at least has approached in scale and nature the events of Sabra and Chatila. To try and make such a comparison, even by innuendo is odious in the extreme.

Seamus O Drisceoil, Cuas an Uisce, Oilean Cleire, An Sciobairin, Co Chorcai.

Remembering Roberta Gray

I JUST wanted to write and say how shocked and saddened I was to read about Roberta Gray's death.

I didn't know Roberta at all, I'm just a reader who found her writing to be always illuminating and always on the pulse.

Roberta's very personable style of writing made me warm to her without ever having had the privilege of actually meeting her. Her editorial on the environment, sustainability and her social column musings were my favourite Sunday reading.

It's hard to know what to say when you feel saddened by the death of someone that you didn't even know, but Roberta definitely made an impact on my life with her brilliant journalism on green issues especially.

Roberta's contribution to Irish journalism will always be remembered with great fondness by anyone who ever read her writings; she had a great mind and a wisdom and warmth in her writing that surpassed her young years.

Thank you for sharing your wit, knowledge and brilliant mind with us . . . you'll be very very missed by this Carol Ni Anluain ani2005@eircom. net Sunday Tribune reader.

I JUST wanted to say how saddened I was to hear about Roberta Gray's death.

I loved reading her columns, in particular 'This Dating Life' which made me laugh out loud so many times. She was so talented and witty and I loved her turn of phrase and I wish I'd known her as a friend.

Eimear Cahill eimear. cahill@gmail. com

I WOULD like to commend you on your endeavour to raise awareness of the important issue of suicide.

However, your article uses the verb "to commit": this is innaccurate as it implies that the act of suicide is a criminal offence. As section 2 (1) Criminal Law (Suicide) Act provides that suicide is not a criminal offence in Ireland. Perhaps continued use of the phrase "to commit" suicide contributes to its stigmatisation thus preventing open discussion of the problem in Irish society.

David McGuinness, 7 Fairhill Lower, The Claddagh, Galway.