The claim by WB Yeats that this "is no country for old men" must be proved wrong, President Mary McAleese said yesterday at a forum she organised to highlight the loneliness and isolation experienced by some older men.
Mrs McAleese brought more than 100 people to Áras an Uachtaráin to exchange ideas on how to counter this isolation. She said she got the idea for the forum after attending many events involving older people and being struck by the lack of men at such gatherings.
Mrs McAleese said that, while young men were at the highest risk of suicide, "we sometimes forget the fact that the second most at-risk group of suicide are older men, particularly those living alone".
She said it was important to identify what was happening, "to ensure that loneliness does not slide into isolation".
Mrs McAleese said she suspected that older men might benefit from being "nagged and dragged to some extent".
The need to be "nagged" into attending activities was highlighted by several speakers, including Colm O'Connor of the Summerhill Active Retirement Group.
He said older men were less likely to attend an event if they did not get a personal invitation from someone they knew. They were also less likely to attend an event on their own and, if a friend dropped out, they would not go alone.
However, consultant geriatrician Prof Des O'Neill said he was a little uneasy at the idea that people should be "nagged and dragged", and said that if people did not want to attend an event or activity, then perhaps the organisers should ask if they were providing the right activities.
He also pointed to the stigma surrounding the loneliness of older people. The level of loneliness suffered by older people was not very different from that experienced many years ago, but labelling people as "lonely" stigmatised the issue.
Prof Eamon O'Shea, director of the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, said older men had become less visible in society.
His childhood in Tipperary was dominated by older men who called to his home and told stories. Such men were still here but they were not as visible anymore, he said. Some 11 per cent of the population are now over 65, but this will increase to 25 per cent by 2026, he added.
Writer and counsellor Anne Dempsey said retirement was like a bereavement for many men who formed most of their relationships through work.
The forum also heard from older men such as Jimmy Carr (80) from Glencolumbkille, Co Donegal. He said people were no longer happy with their lot and the brittle bonds of society were "splintering and scattering in a thousand directions".
