Positive Ageing Week at Clare County Library

Positive Ageing Week is a festival which highlights the positive aspects of ageing and celebrates the contribution older people have made, and continue to make, to their communities. This year it runs from 25th September to 3rd October and to mark the event Clare County Library has organised a very special evening of entertainment with the Forever Young choir at the DeValera Library, Ennis, on Friday 25th September at 8.00 pm. Forever Young are a mixed choral group from County Clare. A performance in 2007 by the American group The Young at Heart Chorus, whose members are senior citizens, provided the inspiration for founding the Forever Young Choir. Based in Ennis, the 28 member, over 70s choir formed in 2008 and received a standing ovation at their first performance at the Active Retirement Ireland AGM in Clare. Since then they have been going from strength to strength, proving that there are certainly no age barriers in music. Their signature tune, Bob Dylan's "Forever Young", inspired their name. Conducted by choir mistress Joan Duggan, they practise weekly in the Ennis Cathedral choir room. Members show enormous commitment to their choir while always retaining a degree of levity in their attitude towards life and performing. The choir has performed at several venues and always to great acclaim. They regularly perform such long standing hits as "Lillie Marleen" and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot". “Positive Ageing” is the term chosen to encapsulate all that is being done to make Ireland a good place in which to grow old. Coordinated by Age Action Ireland, the central aim of the week is to dispel the many negative perceptions that surround ageing and to transform attitudes towards ageing and older people. We need to celebrate the fact that we are living longer and that ageing is not a burden but an opportunity. The library event begins at 8.00 pm. All are welcome and entry is free. It’s sure to be a very special evening - don’t miss it!