Full-on Frankie

THE TIMES WE LIVED IN:CONSPIRATORS IN SOME rakish spy movie from turn-of-the-20th-century Vienna? Attendees at a top-notch cocktail party? No. The picture shows, of all things, the launch of a new PR company.

Frankie Byrne Public Relations Ltd was the brainchild of the woman who would later become famous – infamous, even – in Ireland as the radio agony aunt “Dear Frankie”. In 1963, however, she was leaving the McConnells PR agency to set up on her own – prompting her former boss, John McConnell, to present her with a new office desk and wish her well.

Ah, the innocence of public relations past.

Frankie was determined to start with a stylish splash. Hence this classy bash at Jury’s Hotel in Dublin, attended by the Lord Mayor of Dublin Alderman JJ O’Keeffe TD, and 200 guests. Her outfit is as immaculate as you’d expect from the first woman to set up a PR company in Ireland: small wonder that she was hired to cover the visit of the über-glam US president JFK to Ireland later that year.

Flanking their new PR guru in our photograph – and no slouches on the style front themselves, it must be said – are high-profile clients (left) Mr C Gordon Lambert, sales director of Jacob’s biscuits, and (right) Mr James A Chapman of Switzer’s department store on Grafton Street. In the centre, Frankie’s enigmatic smile and ever-so-slightly-raised eyebrows seem to say: “Well, boys, I got you into the paper on day one. Pretty good going, huh?” It was Jacob’s which would entice Frankie on to RTÉ radio as presenter of a domestic science slot on one of the company’s sponsored shows. Not being the domestic goddess type, she quickly suggested an agony aunt slot instead – and a legend was born.

In later life, the going got tough for Frankie Byrne as she turned to drink and prescription drugs. She got clean, dropped out of the public eye, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She died in 1993.

But as the ongoing success of Niamh Gleeson’s play Dear Frankie proves, she’s still remembered with great affection. Audience reaction to the play has even inspired an RTÉ radio documentary – a full circle with which this full-on character would, surely, be delighted.

Arminta Wallace

[ irishtimes.com/archive ]

Published on January 29th, 1963 Photograph by Jimmy McCormack