Senior citizens' day launched

Comedian Brendan O'Carroll with Betty Webster from Blackhorse Avenue in Dublin at the launch of Dublin City Senior Citizens¿ Day today. Photograph: Frank Miller/the Irish Times

SASJKIA OTTO

Senior citizens carrying their free travel passes will enjoy free or reduced-rate entry to all cultural and entertainment events on Dublin Senior Citizens day next Monday.

Friends of the Elderly today launched the day's programme on a 1950s Dublin bus on O'Connell Street with Lord Mayor Emer Costello, comedian Brendan O’Carroll and three elderly citizens.

A spokesman for Friends of the Elderly said: “Dublin Senior Citizens Day is the day when senior citizens from all over Ireland are welcomed into their capital city. It is the day when we celebrate them and thank them for all they have achieved and all they have passed on to us.

“We tried to recreate the days when Dublin was the centre of shopping for all shoppers and ladies came into town three or four times a week. This bus was in its prime when they were in their prime.”

He said while the average senior citizen has spent the equivalent of €180,000 during their lifetime, 130,000 senior citizens live alone - often on a state pension. “When they were consumers they were the centre of attention and now they have become invisible,” he said.

Mr O’Carroll criticised the Government for withdrawing the Christmas bonus. “We wouldn’t have had the Celtic Tiger were it not for their hard work,” he said. “They shouldn’t want for anything. If they do, shame on us.”

Ms Costello said she wants to create an age-friendly Dublin. “Senior citizens are great and adventurous and we want to offer them as much as possible to do,” she said.

There will be free of reduced entry to the Book of Kells, Dublin Castle, Writers Museum, National Gallery, National Wax Museum Plus, Croke Park, Christchurch Cathedral, Dublinia and the Viking World and ESB Dublin Georgian House Museum.

The Irish Film Institute will hold a free morning screening of Casablanca and the Screen Cinema will offer reduced entry for Singing in the Rain in the afternoon. There will be free raffles in the Ilac Centre and live music in the Ilac and GPO.

Senior citizens can call to Dublin Tourism offices on Suffolk Street of O’Connell Street on Monday to collect a map and events programme or visit www.dublincityseniorcitizensday.ie.