Suzy Byrne, the daughter of the late Gay Byrne and Kathleen Watkins, has said it was bittersweet compiling the new book PS Gay: More Letters and Memories from the Gay Byrne Show.
Speaking on Today with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio 1, Suzy Byrne said the follow-up to 2023's bestseller Dear Gay is a tribute to her late parents and also to the devoted listeners of The Gay Byrne Show, which ran on RTÉ Radio 1 from 1973 to 1998.
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The book was compiled by Suzy Byrne and Gay Byrne's former colleague Alice O'Sullivan.
Having begun the book before the death of Kathleen Watkins last November, Suzy Byrne said it was "difficult" to return to the project after her mother's passing.
"It's a year ago next Friday that Mum died," Suzy Byrne told the host.
"We'd done a huge amount of work, myself and Alice O'Sullivan, in the run-up to Mum's death. And it felt at the time when she died, I just couldn't do it. I actually couldn't go near it again.
"A few months later, Alice persuaded me to go back in [to the RTÉ Archives]. We decided to go last February, to go back and finish it, because a lot of the research that I had done... Mum had been at home in Sandymount, and I'd be going down from RTÉ to her with funny stories of things that we'd found, her own writing in the various requests to Dad to say requests on the radio, etc. She was so excited about the book, so it kind of felt like a bit of a tribute to her to finish it. And also, a tribute to all the women who listened and were part of the story of PS Gay."
Suzy Byrne said she found it "very difficult" at times to compile the book as she listened to her father's voice and read her parents' handwriting.
"Grief, as everyone knows, is a very lonely place, so you're sometimes just taken off into moments," she continued. "And their writing, particularly, Dad's voice very much so, but a lot of it is upbeat and it's kind of almost of its time. Whereas Mum's writing and Dad's writing, which are all over the files, it's funny because they were so together and stuff, and she was so involved in our lives and his life. But yes, it was quite emotional at times. It depends on the day."
She described the project as "such a privilege".
"I don't know anybody else that has had the privilege of going in and really understanding their own parents, where they've come from and the jobs that they did.
"As a teenager and growing up, Gay Byrne/Late Late Show was part of our lives, but we were mortified a lot of the time by it! You know, they're talking about sex, about the Church, about things and - [we] didn't want to know about it!
"Whereas as an adult, to go back in, it really was an incredible privilege, to now understand why everybody loved him and the show and the work that went into it and everything. So, it was upsetting at times but emotionally a privilege, I think, all in all. So, as they would say themselves, the show must go on."
Suzy Byrne paid tribute to the "brutal honesty" of Gay Byrne's listeners and the warmth, compassion, and humour in their letters - people who "sat down and poured out their hearts", "often at personal risks to themselves".
"I think that's the beauty of it all, that feeling of the community," she said. "There was so many people listening, and they were all over the country. And there was a feeling that other people had things going on in their lives that were mirroring their own lives.
"They really felt they were talking to him. They really weren't talking to anybody else, and I think they really felt that he was listening, and that nothing was too small or too petty or too big, that they could just share.
"There's a lot of sadness and a lot of hardship, but there's so much fun. And the humour and the backbone of these mostly women - not exclusively women, mostly women - and what they contributed to the change [in Ireland]. He always said he was a conduit for change, but really, when you go into the archives and you see these letters and comments, phone comments, they were part of the show, and they felt part of the show."
"I think it's a great reflection of people who were upbeat and strong and full of fun and laughter, even in the face of not-so-great times," she concluded.
PS Gay: More Letters and Memories from the Gay Byrne Show is published by Gill Books.
