Irish Examiner view: Pandemic has diminished the role of many older adults

A lot of insight has been devoted to the impact Covid-19 has had on younger people, yet little has been said on how the pandemic has marginalised many older people in our community

There are a wide range of insights in our two-part series on how Covid-19 had multiple impacts on older people in Ireland and what can justifiably be defined as an ageist reaction to the management of their liberties. Picture: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie

There are a wide range of insights in our two-part series on how Covid-19 had multiple impacts on older people in Ireland and what can justifiably be defined as an ageist reaction to the management of their liberties.

Much has been written, and commented upon, previously in this leader column, about the huge sacrifices and burdens shouldered by the young in the past two years. But for older, and elderly, people, this is time they have lost that may never be recovered.

The comments of Rose Anne Kenny, the founding principal investigator of Ireland’s largest adult population study on the experience of ageing, have been eloquent and strong. Her team concluded that loneliness increased threefold during the pandemic. Like other experts we have interviewed, there is an acknowledgement that there was ageism in how the Government, and society, viewed and treated older people.

“Diminished is the word that best describes how I feel,” said one respondent to Prof Kenny’s study.

 “I went from a part-time working, grandchildren-minding, school-runs, swimming-classes, meal-giving grandparent, to a locked-in, not-consulted, not-engaged adult.”

A significant part of this resentment concerns the rules surrounding “cocooning” or the self-isolation of a section of the population defined by age. No other at-risk category was so broadly constrained. “Obese people are hugely at risk from Covid. Imagine they had said anyone over a certain weight can’t leave the house?” said Prof Kenny.

Society, all around the world, is becoming older and we must move with these times. There is much to be learned from this crisis, but we will leave the last word, for now, to one of our interview subjects from Co Clare.

“I am not old, but I am older now than I ever was, because you were made feel old.”