'It's in giving that we receive': Grandparents play a critical role in the family 

Dor recalls exactly what she was doing when each of her six grandchildren was born. Ellen, 12, arrived in icy weather during winter 2010. “I was sitting by the fire waiting for the call. When my husband, Noel, and I heard the news, we drove to the hospital — there was a thaw. I went up to the delivery room and her dad put Ellen in my arms and told me she was going to be called Ellen after my grandmother to whom I was very close.”

Dor was in Zurich when she heard Eva, 10, was born. It was Christmas Eve 2014 when Cillian, eight, arrived — Dor and Noel drove down to Kilworth to see him.

Noel was very ill when Erin, five, came into the world — and Dor was just out from a doctor’s visit when Hugh, four, put in his appearance.

Liadh, Dor’s daughter Mairéad’s child, arrived early, signalling she was on the way just as Mairéad was on her way to meet Dor for lunch. “Liadh was like a little doll when she was born. I was dying to see her and take her in my arms. That first hold of them — sure it’s brilliant,” says Dor, a former primary schoolteacher.

Being a grandmother is wonderful, she says. “Of course, it depends on what you put into it. I love them and I’m very involved and busy with them — and yet I haven’t the responsibility of them.”

‘We play all sorts of games’

She is known as Granny Dor to her grandchildren. “My own children’s paternal grandmother was Granny Mac. I said ‘I’m not going to be Granny Mac — there was only one Granny Mac. I’m going to be Granny Dor’.”

Aside from looking after her grandchildren in practical ways — particularly those who live closest to her — Dor plays a lot with them. “Hugh thinks I’m his pal. We play all sorts of games, dinosaurs the other night, running around chasing each other. I said, ‘Hugh, I’m tired, I must sit down’, but then I jumped up and kept going.”

“With Ellen, I did a lot of painting and make-and-do before she ever went to school. She liked sounds and rhymes and songs. I’d have seen Eva a lot, the eldest of my son Pat’s children. She’s very outgoing and animated. She loves singing, dancing, they all love stories. I go to art classes and I’d have Eva and Ellen outside painting.”

Dor loves reading to her grandchildren and has always been struck by how Hugh, a very energetic little boy, wouldn’t look at a book all day but come the evening wants Granny Dor to read to him. “He’d say ‘Granny, come up and read the story’ and sometimes he’d have three books he’d want read. He’d be lying down but he’d stick his head up and want to look in detail at the pictures. It was The Elf and The Shoemaker recently. He loves books about tractors.”

Dor has been on family holidays with her grandchildren, one to Mayo visiting Noel’s relatives. “There were five grandchildren at that stage. We went on to Sligo and spent all our time on the beach. I love being in the water with them, encouraging them, helping them. 

“I dance a lot with them. They say ‘Dance with me Granny’ and they’d have the music on. And I tell them stories about myself when I was young. Eva really loves stories like that and remembers them.

“Being a grandmother and being with my grandchildren brings huge richness to my life. It helped me immensely when Noel passed away in 2019. To have the children close to me got me through those times.

“It keeps me young at heart. Certainly, I get tired at times — I’m not Wonder Woman, but I feel I’ve a lot of love to give and that keeps me happy. I always say ‘it’s in giving we receive’. I’m just happy around them, and also that I’m there to support my own children.”

Less burdened

Psychotherapist Bethan O’Riordan recalls a grandparent once saying ‘I don’t have to raise my grandchildren, I just have to love them’.

Describing how the grandparent-child relationship is less burdened, O’Riordan, who specialises in parenting support, says: “Parents obviously love their children but we have to teach them so much and sometimes that can complicate things. Grandparents’ love is less emotionally charged. They don’t have to do the day-to-day bit so it’s a different sort of love.”

And because grandparents don’t have the pressure of doing housework and pursuing a career alongside bringing up children, they often have the great luxury of time to lavish on grandchildren. “My mom took my children to Blarney Castle and they were gone for hours. When they got back, my mom said, ‘Well, we looked at every leaf…’ I wouldn’t do that because I have to get home to do dinner.”

Grandparents come with wisdom and life experience, which enriches children’s lives, says O’Riordan. And so do the stories grandparents tell. “I know stories about my grandparents my parents never knew.

“We’re all part of a family and grandparents fill you in and tell you stories. You get more of a chance to identify who you are. And the more we can connect with who we are, the better, especially because life today can be very isolating.”

The connection between grandparents and grandchildren brings great benefits for the older generation too, O’Riordan says. She notes that, as people age, they can get pigeonholed due to particular characteristics — but grandchildren don’t even see these others-imposed limits.

“A granddad might be classified as grumpy, and then the toddler or the five-year-old comes in and sits beside Granddad and watches the Gaelic on the TV with him — and someone who hasn’t been so included in the family now is.

“Children break through with kindness, acceptance and cuddles where adults have got pigeonholed because of temperament. A 20-month-old can hug a grandparent who hasn’t been hugged in years, and the grandparent can open up to being loved again. The hurts of life melt away when children are around.”

O’Riordan’s mum has played the card game 21 with her grandchildren and it reminds the older woman of the love she herself received from a grandparent. “She remembers the feeling of being a little girl and playing that game with her Nana. And all the memories come back of being cared about.”

Beneficial for wellbeing

Pointing to a link between Alzheimer’s disease and loneliness and isolation, O’Riordan says: “Being around children is so beneficial for an older person’s wellbeing.”

In 2018, Ann Buchanan of the University of Oxford’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention pointed out in the Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences, that a growing body of research shows grandparent involvement is linked with improved mental health, resilience and pro-social behaviour in grandchildren.

One particular study, Buchanan wrote, “found that adolescents whose closest grandparent was involved in their lives following their parents’ separation or divorce, reported fewer emotional symptoms and more pro-social behaviours than those with less grandparent involvement”.

A 2020 paper published in the Journal of Family Studies said research on grandchildren and their grandparents has shown the importance of the bond between them for their wellbeing, the good development of the grandchildren and the grandparents’ successful ageing.

O’Riordan says every family is a system. “And the more the parts of the family system interact, the easier the system is.”

Meanwhile, in Clare, Dor says interacting with her grandchildren is keeping her young and interested. “I’m very, very privileged,” she says.