Psychiatrist and broadcaster Anthony Clare dies

DUBLIN, Nov 1 (Reuters) Psychiatrist, broadcaster and author Professor Anthony Clare has died of a heart attack at the age of 64, one of his seven children said on Tuesday.

Clare, best known as the presenter of BBC Radio 4's series ''In The Psychiatrist's Chair'', died in Paris on Sunday, his daughter Rachel Clare told Reuters.

''It was sudden. There was no illness, just a heart attack,'' she said in a telephone call.

Clare, an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin, had been due to retire as consultant psychiatrist at the St Edmundsbury acute psychiatric unit on the outskirts of Dublin later this year, Irish media reported.

''He was not only the best known psychiatrist in Ireland and Britain, but in the United States as well because he made regular trips there,'' Patricia Casey, professor of psychiatry at Dublin's Mater Misericordiae Hospital, told RTE radio.

''He did indeed demystify psychiatry at a time when people thought that psychiatrists had two horns and locked people up,'' Casey said of a man who also co-wrote the book ''Depression and how to survive it'' with comedian Spike Milligan.

Reuters PJ RN1645