Age-old question of when to pack it in

There will be a lot of fanfare over the coming weeks to mark Gay Byrne’s 80th birthday, which falls in early August, as there has just been plaudits for Bill O’Herlihy, as he stepped away from the anchor seat of RTÉ’s sports department, having steered us through 10 World Cups and 10 Olympic Games on TV. And rightly so.

Both men are exemplars. There is something particularly impressive about their longevity. Vitality, as the late Dr Garret FitzGerald once remarked, is to be commended. It seems to be all about experience these days. Monty Python are on tour. Next month, the legendary modern dancer Valda Setterfield, who has choreographed several Woody Allen films, will take the title role in the Lear Project at the Kilkenny Arts Festival. She’s 79.

Barry Cassin is a decade older. His professional acting career stretches back to the Second World War, when he tramped around Ireland with a “fit-up” theatre company, playing in halls so cramped that his troupe used to have to crawl under stages to get from one side to the other. He once came face-to-face with Anna Manahan — she in a white dress; he in an evening suit — while crawling on all fours in between abandoned props under the stage in Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick.