During the winter, the shorter days, isolation, and limited support can have a significant impact on the older generations in Ireland.

John Lonergan is urging people to make the effort to visit and help out others over the coming months, and has spoke of the importance of community and connection as people age.

Lonergan is the Age Friendly Ireland ambassador for Co. Tipperary.

He is well-known as having served in the Irish Prison Service for over 42 years, as governor of Mountjoy Prison for over 22 years and governor of the top security prison at Portlaoise for almost four years, before he retired in 2010.

He explained: “I suppose it's a very unique experience that I had.

"I always say to people, that prison is a very, very unique and very unusual place to be and to work in, because of the whole psychology around it.

“So it is a very traumatic, difficult time for people. And of course, mental health and mental illness has always been and will always be very closely connected to criminality.”

He said prison itself can certainly contribute to mental ill health.

Lonergan said he gained “great insight into the sort of things that are important”.

Upon retiring, he took with him a lot of experience and wisdom - and aimed to “share it" through his further work on community engagement.

Age Friendly Ireland is a local government led-service in Ireland, working with multiple national stakeholders to prepare Ireland’s infrastructure and service for the predicted rapid increase in an older population.

This winter, Age Friendly Ireland is drawing attention to a growing issue: the mental health pressures facing older people in rural communities, where shorter days, isolation and limited support can take a real toll.

Following the establishment of age-friendly alliances in every local authority, local strategies have been developed to try and make a real difference to the lives of increasing numbers of older people.

Lonergan is urging people to get in touch with their local authority about these programmes.

The Age Friendly ambassador spoke with Agriland about the sharp rise in loneliness, low mood, and disconnection among older adults - all challenges that can intensify during the winter months.

Sense of community

Lonergan is a native of Bansha, Co. Tipperary. 

He said when he growing up, there was a “very strong sense” of and “focus on community”, much aided by the late parish priest Canon John Hayes who founded Muintir na Tíre, the national voluntary organisation dedicated to promoting the process of community development.

Lonergan puts a large emphasis on his “great belief in community”, along with the “significance of it and the decline in community”.

He noted that over the last 20-30 years, the flight of people from rural communities to bigger urban centres has “brought new challenges and difficulties that we didn’t face or didn’t recognise years ago”.

“Then, technology has taken over the world and it's going to take over the world more,” he said.

“While lots of it is very positive and has tremendous potential, equally, it does undermine the human contact bit and the bit that I believe is so, so important, and that is social and human connection.”

However, Lonergan said: “Around the areas we're talking about, loneliness, isolation, depression, any contact is better than none.

"If you don't have in-person contact, well then technical and digital contact is definitely better than none.

“But if you said to me, what's the best and what's the most beneficial to the individual person, it's direct human contact.”

And that was once "in abundance" in Ireland, especially in the countryside.

"Things that we took for granted when we were growing up, like going to the creamery, that was more than just a business trip - that was a social trip as well.

"People sat on the wall and chatted for half an hour.

"The abilities to facilitate ongoing social contact is more challenging."

With a much shorter period of daylight, along with poorer weather and difficult driving conditions during the winter months, Lonergan said that contributes to "social alienation and social disconnection".

Make a small effort this winter

Lonergan advocates that it is "in everyone's interest to go and make a small effort" to visit and help neighbours who are older or isolated - "because your turn will come eventually".

"We are all vulnerable and dependent at times and it's just to acknowledge that," he said.

"Just doing it because it's a civic and human thing to do - the strong to help the weak."

Christmas can be an increasingly difficult time of the year, he added.

"Christmas is a time where there is a focus on family and on reunion and celebration," Lonergan said.

"If you're on your own, then that brings about obviously reminiscing and looking back and obviously sadness and loneliness comes into it.

"Instead of Christmas being a very positive and exciting period for some, especially older people, it can actually be the opposite. It can be a very, very dark and depressing period."

He said it is important that supports and infrastructure are provided by government to enable older people to live in their home in their own communities for as long as they can.

Lonergan also added: "I'd be advocating to older people to spend money on comforts for themselves.

"There is a lot of people who can afford it but for some reason they deny themselves those comforts on the basis that they need the money when they die or they need the money for their families.

"I would be saying to them - at your age, you have earned the right to look after yourself and to be kind and generous to yourself, especially around the basics."