Georgina Clarke, who will celebrate her 90th birthday next year, describes losing her husband when she was 22 years old as “very hard”.
Clarke, originally from Cabra in north Dublin, explains her husband Seamus, then aged 26, was knocked down by a milk lorry while cycling to a football match.
“The judge said there was negligence on both sides – the driver walked away with a fine and I walked away left to rear three children on my own,” she recalls, sitting in the Friends of the Elderly Centre in Dublin’s north inner city on Thursday.
The non-profit organisation runs social programmes for older people to help relieve isolation and loneliness. About 30 older people have gathered on this particular afternoon to celebrate International Day of Happiness, some dancing, others catching up over a cup of tea.
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Clarke’s advice on how to maintain a happy life is to “get out and keep going”. She says while losing her husband so young was difficult, retiring from her job at the Department of Agriculture after 37 years left her unsure what to do with her time.
“It was a big change, rushing and racing for buses to all of a sudden it’s gone and the people that you meet when you work, they were gone,” she says.
“It was a complete new life to me, because you’re at home and the family are married and gone. So you’re sitting looking at four walls, it’s very depressing and it brings your health down. I went completely down in myself and a friend of mine suggested coming here and it’s the best thing I ever done.
“This is heaven, I love it. We all get together, we dance, we sing, we have tea and coffee and it’s just a brilliant place.”
Christy Hogan (81), originally from Nenagh, Co Tipperary, and now living in Perrystown, says good health is the key to happiness for him.
Hogan, who suffers from COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], underwent triple bypass surgery in June 2021 and spent three months recovering in hospital.
“I had to work hard to get back on my feet again and made a fairly good recovery,” he says.
“Every morning I get up now I am quite happy because I have my social life back again. That’s very important to me and my independence … My greatest unhappiness would be if I ever had to go into a nursing home.”
Ellen Byas (82), from the Navan Road, says she is off to Dubai later this month for a cruise alongside her friend Kathleen. “I like to socialise a lot, I’m out every day,” she says. “I do a lot of dancing, gardening, making friends. That’s what happiness is to me.”
Guest of honour at the event was local TD and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, who spoke of the “sense of comfort” upon coming through the centre’s doors.
“One of you said, ‘you can come to talk to people if you want and not to talk to people if you don’t want’. Sometimes those are my happiest moments, when I stop talking, which is rare,” said McDonald with a grin.
