A father of modern comedy

Spike Milligan's innovation and unique humour were highlighted in tributes paid yesterday. He was always a welcome and popular guest on The Late Late Show, according to Gay Byrne, its former presenter. "I always loved to have him on, because he was universally loved."

Byrne says he knew the reaction he would get as soon as he mentioned the comedian's name. "You could see the studio audience sitting up, smiling and welcoming him, knowing they were going to be entertained."

Milligan was "a comic genius", according to the broadcaster. This led to some surreal encounters, however. "He was a very, very strange man to interview. It was a challenge to ground him because, with his comic mind, he would see something or think of something that would make a gag - and suddenly he was off, sending you into hysterics."

Byrne says he listened assiduously to

The Goon Show and marvelled at Milligan's talents. "You know he wrote all the scripts, and on several occasions he said it had driven him into a deep depression. I don't doubt it."

He says he was very sad to hear of Milligan's death, but not unduly surprised. "It came as no great surprise, as he had been sick and had gone downhill rapidly in the last two years."

Whenever he met him, Milligan loved to talk about Ireland. "Whenever he did the Late Late, he would always take a few days here before or after it. Everything Irish people said was very funny to him."

The radio and television presenter Terry Wogan describes Milligan as a comic genius who will be sadly missed by all who loved comedy.

"He was probably the father figure of British comedy in the latter part of the last century, and he truly broke the mould," says Wogan. "He was the most original comic writer and performer Britain has produced since the war. He brought a whole new sense of humour to Britain. He was a comic genius."

Milligan was an innovator and a pioneer, according to Brendan Balfe, the RTÉ broadcaster, who has regularly played extracts from the comedian on his radio programmes. "Nothing would have happened without him. There would be no Python or anything else without him," he says. "What I liked particularly about him was his very surreal approach.

Balfe praises the "utterly make-believe world" that Milligan created on his radio programmes.

He sees traces of James Joyce in the stream of consciousness used by Milligan and shades of Flann O'Brien in the more absurdist elements. He also sees similarities between Milligan and S.J. Perelman, the Marx Brothers writer, in their use of language.

Milligan was not as good on television, Balfe thinks, because the inflexibility of the medium did not suit his innovative approach.

The comedian produced several comedy albums with George Martin, the Beatles producer, and these are a favourite of Balfe's. "They still hold up today and they will continue to do so. They are very, very good."

Michael Noonan, the leader of Fine Gael, says he was "very sad" to hear of Milligan's death. He says his work for sufferers of manic depression would be his epitaph.

The comedian's love of this country was obvious whenever he visited these shores, according to Noonan. "Speaking of the Irish in 1963, he said - with a turn of phrase that only he could produce - that 'some people die of thirst, but the Irish are born with one'. No offence was ever taken at this gentle mockery."