There is a generational divide in how Irish people view turning 50, with almost 6 in 10 young adults believing that by 49, someone's most exciting years are largely behind them.
While there are many inspirational posters claiming the opposite, there are many young people who believe that life does not begin at 50.
In fact, 60% of Gen Z believe that our best years are behind us by the time we turn 49.
However, there are many people over that age that disagree with the young folk, one of which is Francis Brennan.
The hotelier joined The Pat Kenny Show to clap back at this belief, and said that retirement was the best thing to have happened to him.
He explained: "Listen, retirement was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because when I was working, I spent my whole life working.
"I was able to work and I enjoyed every minute of it, but now, all of a sudden, I have plenty of time to come to Renvyle House Hotel, where I am as I talk to you, for five days and don't have to worry about anybody. It's absolutely fantastic.
"The opportunity is there to do anything and I can go for a bike ride, I can play bingo tonight if I want to.
"My sister, she's in her 70s too, she started the other day taking piano lessons. You could do all sorts of things.
"There's no reason why you should sit at home and say, 'Poor me, I'm old'. Get up and get out."
Rose Anne Kenny, Professor of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin and Founding Principal Investigator of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), joined Francis Brennan in the chat, and shared how disappointed she was with this research on Gen Z's opinion on ageing.
She explained: "What was disappointing about this research, from my perspective, was the misperceptions of what it's like to get older, because in fact, life gets better after 50.
"When we look at quality of life measures in people aged 50 and older, we find they continue to improve year on year after age 50 and peak only in the mid 70s or 80s for some people that your quality of life gets better and the factors which determine it declining after that are physical ill health mostly.
"What's interesting is you're nearly in your mid 80s before your quality of life is at the level it was at 50. So life gets better after 50.
"Sad, for me, was that that message still hasn't got out there for the younger age group that the study included."
Main image: Francis Brennan
