The link between health and social connection is well established.According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, published last year, more than one in four older adults, whose lives are often marked by significant events such as retirement, bereavement and loss of social contacts, are affected by social isolation. Social connection, it finds, can protect health across our lifespan, reducing inflammation, lowering the risk of serious health problems, fostering better mental health, and preventing early death. In contrast, loneliness and social isolation increase the risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline, and premature death. They also affect mental health, with people who are lonely twice as likely to get depressed. More recent WHO research suggests that up to 45 per cent of dementia risk can be prevented or delayed, and that, alongside modifiable risk factors such as tobacco and alcohol use, physical inactivity, air pollution and diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes, reducing social isolation can help with that too.It’s why joining that choir, bridge club, men’s shed or Tidy Towns group is so important.Engaging with the arts can also help, according to Daisy Fancourt, professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London and bestselling author of Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health, a speaker at this year’s West Cork Literary Festival.The Big Bealtaine Tea Party at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Kilmainham kicked off the month-long Bealtaine Festival, celebrating the arts and ageing, in May 2026. Photograph: Niall Carson A dose of the artsFancourt’s research shows how, just as songs support the architectural development of children’s brains, creative hobbies help older adults’ brains stay resilient against dementia, while visual art and music act “just like drugs” to reduce depression, stress and pain.You don’t have to be creative yourself; simply attending live music events, museums, exhibitions and theatre decreases our risk of future loneliness and frailty. A 2019 UK study found that people who engaged in the arts monthly, including simply going to museums, theatre and cinema, had nearly half the risk of developing depression.Engaging in the arts has been found to improve the functioning of every vital organ system in the body. It’s why the arts, alongside diet, sleep, exercise and nature, are, she maintains, “the forgotten fifth pillar of health”.It’s something Tara Byrne, arts programme manager at Age & Opportunity, and artistic director of its flagship Bealtaine Festival, believes wholeheartedly. Age & Opportunity is the national organisation that helps older people engage in physical activity, recreational sport, arts and creativity. It also runs personal development and active citizenship initiatives.Its flagship Bealtaine Festival is a month-long event celebrating the arts and creativity in older age. As with all of its activities, a key aim is to reduce social isolation and improve overall wellbeing.Tara Byrne, arts programme manager, Age & Opportunity “Social isolation is one of the key determinants of ageing vulnerably. It can lead to dementia and has huge physical effects. Loneliness has been equated with smoking [in terms of its negative impact on health] and that lack of interaction with other people means you can become less sharp, less connected to the world,” says Byrne.“Participation is the key component that runs through all our programme. It’s about older people’s participation in life, retaining the agency you hopefully had when you were younger, being an active member of the world and an active citizen in Ireland.”She encourages older people to either get involved in their local arts organisations or simply make a habit of attending arts events.Age & Opportunity runs a range of initiatives aimed at encouraging participation in physical activity. Sport for all Age & Opportunity also has a range of initiatives promoting physical activity. It supports Walking Football, an initiative for older men whose teams often emerge from local Men’s Sheds, and which is great fun and good for general health and wellbeing.It runs a physical activity leaders programme which trains older people how to lead sport and activity sessions in local groups and communities, and hosts FitLine, an entirely free, volunteer-led telephone-based motivation line that encourages older people to become more active.And don’t underestimate the value of becoming a volunteer, she adds. “It’s a bit of a cliche, but a lot of people who are older have fewer caring responsibilities and perhaps a bit more time,” says Byrne. “Often they stay active doing Meals on Wheels or helping with phone lines for organisations such as Alone.”The Bealtaine arts festival also offers ample opportunities for volunteers to get involved. “They have good fun and get to go to the events as well because we’ll give them free tickets. It also tends to be intergenerational, which everybody likes, particularly older people, and I’m in that bracket myself, because we’re talking everything from 50 years up,” she says.Travel together Travel is another way to stay engaged and protect the grey matter but, as we age, it can be harder to find the right opportunities. It’s not only those who are widowed or widowered that can struggle to find travel companions, says Claire Doherty, commercial director of Travel Department.The company specialises in fully guided group tours. And a significant cohort of its clientele on any given trip will be travelling solo. “On average maybe 30 per cent of the people on our regular tours are individual bookers. We also have specific tours that are for solo travellers. These are not singles holidays, you could be married for someone for years and yet they have no interest in going off to see India, which might be something on your list. We find a huge amount of our solo travellers are married, but their partners don’t want to go with them, so they go off and do it by themselves,” she says. “Our tours give them an opportunity to be on their own but have everything looked after, with a group and a guide, and not to have to worry about themselves or their safety.”Guided tours offer a lovely mix of group camaraderie, as well as time and space to do your own thing, as and when you feel the need, she adds. Listen upIf you find yourself becoming less socially engaged over time, however, there is one important step you should take – get your hearing checked. According to the WHO, hearing aids can play a part in risk-reduction strategies for dementia. Yet often people neglect to find out if they need them, says Orla Walsh, audiology director at Specsavers Liffey Valley in Dublin. As we age, wear and tear in the cochlea reduces our ability to hear. Unfortunately, for too many people, the public health nurse in senior infants is likely the last time they got their hearing assessed, she says.Not everyone needs hearing aids as they age, but if you do, it’s important you get them, not least to guard against social exclusion.“Very often people don’t notice it because it happens so gradually. It’s only when the volume on the telly is so high that nobody else in the house can tolerate it that they are dragged into me, and that’s hard, because the person tends to think they don’t have a problem,” she says.“If I had a pound for every person who said to me, ‘if younger people spoke correctly I wouldn’t need hearing aids’, I’d be rich. But it’s actually that you are losing those high frequencies, and the sibilance in speech. You don’t lose volume so much as you lose clarity,” she explains.“It slowly creeps up on people and they don’t realise it. When they come to me, I’ll say, ‘how are you in a pub, or a restaurant, or out at family events’, and they’ll tell me, ‘I don’t go to those things any more.’ They don’t even realise they’ve pulled back because of hearing; they haven’t made the link. They just think, ‘I don’t like this environment’.”That can precipitate an unwanted chain of events. “They pull back socially, become socially isolated, then lonely, and that can then trigger the cognitive decline, because if you’re not stimulating it, your brain will decline.”To find out more about FitLine or to sign up, call FitLine on 1800-303545 or email fitline@ageandopportunity.ie