FOREVER YOUNG

Traditions are a way to link ourselves with the past, a totem for us to ground ourselves in history. They can also be a shackle, a dusty museum of old achievements. A stone stile this week in Mitchelstown is literally a rock in the way of forward movement. A holy well that is famed for its healing virtues isn’t much benefit when the only people who can get to it are the physically mobile.

It is fashionable to dismiss terms like ‘inclusiveness’ as liberal nonsense, but if we are lucky we will all be old someday, and best of all, retired! All that time to live the ultimate life of leisure and freedom, with no alarm clock and no bedtime.

And when the knees are acting up, we might be glad of the chance to call to Fionnchú and see could he do something - if we could get over the wall of course!

It’s good to believe we are forever young, but absolute folly to think the body will listen. Build our lives and towns like we will live forever, and we will be rewarded in our dotage.