Sir, - As an MA student writing my thesis on psychiatric medicine, I felt that above all other psychiatrists I should interview.
Dr Noel Browne. He invited me into the warm home he shared with his wife, Phyllis, in the wilds of Connemara. They moved there, he told me, to turn their backs on the world they had spent their lives fighting against.
The interview moved away from my thesis topic, and as we sat in the sun last August, he spread his life story in front of me. It is not too much to say that Noel Browne's life was an outstanding achievement. His values are those to which we should all aspire.
His relationship with Phyllis was more than a loving marriage: they were a team. On the drive back to Spiddal, Phyllis Browne told me of when she saw Noel for the first time, on Grafton Street. "I knew he looked different from the others," she said. Like her life's partner, she too was different from others and is a remarkable woman.
Without women and men like the Browne's to continue the fight for justice and equality, what will any of us do? - Yours, etc.
8 rue de la Charite,
1210 Brussels.