Challenging the old stereotypes

Josephine Glynn recently celebrated her birthday by taking a hair-raising trip in a helicopter around the rugged Cliffs of Moher, Loop Head and up the Shannon estuary to her home town in Kilrush, Co Clare. Although she is a member of the "older population", defined as 65-plus, many of the activities she takes part in challenge the stereotypes many of us have about the lifestyles of over 65-year-olds.

Josephine Glynn is a fighting a quiet but busy campaign for rights for older people whose lives, she feels, are unnecessarily marginalised in society; by public and private organisations, such as the media and State institutions, after they have spent a large part of their lives contributing to the wellbeing of the society.

She believes the media often reinforces negative stereotypes of older people or airbrushes them out of the picture altogether.

"I don't like to see reporting of any-aged people, that gives a person's age in the reports of events, especially in cases of fires or accidents," she says. I think people should be (reported as) either young or middle aged or older, she adds.

"I would prefer to talk about people growing older," she says. "Everything grows older and I would see elderly as implying people as having some slight disability or some slight disadvantage", she says.

Her resume since retiring is energetic and colourful and spans the globe as she travels to sporting events and conferences organised for senior members of societies around the world.

She has just returned from a two-week sporting event, the Huntsman World senior games in Utah in the US, where 4,500 persons aged over 50 competed in 21 different sports and games ranging from tennis to the triathlon. "From there I competed in the national finals which are held every two years in Orlando, Florida," she says.

Her interest in older people stems from her period working as a social worker-psychotherapist in the former Jervis Street Hospital, Dublin. During this time she got involved in voluntary work, taking patients on outings and other events, and carried out research into contributing causes to long recuperation periods for patients.

In cases where patients were taking a long time to recuperate she discovered a temporal relationship between unresolved grief and the prolonged periods of recuperation.

She has led a diverse, and unpredictable, life since she took early retirement when the hospital suddenly closed. At first she found herself selling a clothing range in American cities for an Irish clothing label.

After some time in the US she settled in Australia for a number of years, working, researching and studying, before returning to Ireland to set up a film production company, Digital Era, which focuses on issues that concern older people. She recently filmed the annual Lord Mayor's dinner for centenarians and a senior sports event which she presented at a conference in Canada.

Earlier this year Josephine and a friend attended the International Federation on Ageing's fourth global conference in Montreal, Canada. The event was attended by 1,200 people from 68 countries as part of the United Nations Year of Older People.

Funding themselves, they were the only Irish citizens at the conference which addressed issues such as discrimination, health, cultural and socio-economic barriers, the creation of infrastructures for the rapid rate of population ageing, and the changes in family patterns which have impacted on the level of care family members can give to the older generation.

Current CSO projections estimate a 70 per cent rise in the over 65 age group by 2026, and Josephine is concerned about the current planning for this growth in this segment of the population. "I don't think we are really getting prepared for this at the moment," she says, while in other countries they are dealing with the issues in a proactive way, she says.

"Take the state of Western Australia," says Josephine, "where in the next 20 years the percentage of seniors will leap from 14 per cent to nearly 25 per cent. There, they have appointed a Minister for Seniors who is putting in place policies, and a five-year plan, where everything will be in place for the expanding older population in the years to come."

Attitudes in Ireland towards older people seem to originate out of a generally accepted but incorrect generalisation about older people, says Josephine. "We tend to think about, and concentrate on providing services for older people that are at risk, which only accounts for a small proportion of the overall total of the older population," she says.

We don't look as much at issues which focus on healthy ageing, which accounts of the vast majority of older people, she says.

She believes that in certain areas the State and the voluntary sector create a positive environment but more work needs to be done in planning and anticipating for the growth of a healthy ageing population.

"We have certainly some really good services for older people, such as free travel, housing and healthcare services and through the network of voluntary active retirement groups around the country supporting the older population."

But there is more work to be done, she says. Partial retirement schemes in other countries allow older people to earn money in later life and they maintain their ability to show that you can still make a contribution. More opportunity for education, such as those provided by the University for the Third Age, started by the Age Action organisation around Ireland and an extended computer training through the library services could also create a more independent older population with access to the wider world.