The twilight years are often the loneliest. Older people are left by the wayside amid the bustle of modern life, where the rush to pay the mortgage leaves no room for extended family or time for checking on frail neighbours.
The twilight years can also be the unhappiest. Many old people live in fear of burglary or of falling and not being found for days. It is a sad way to end a full life. If only there were a way to care for such people without consigning them to nursing homes.
There is. "Boarding out" formalises the Irish tradition of having granny in the corner. Healthy, able-bodied elderly people are placed in private homes, and their hosts get a small allowance for "adopting" someone else's granny or grandad.
The scheme operates in various parts of the country, supervised by health boards. The hosts are not professional carers, although most have looked after sick relatives.
This is not a substitute for nursing care, nor is it suitable for people who are ill or need close attention.
What it offers is security and three square meals a day to people who no longer want to live at home.
Bernadette Calder has made room for six bachelors in her household. She lives in a semi-detached cottage in Co Cavan with her husband and 25-year-old stepson. The old men stay next door.
"I came up with the idea myself and talked to my GP," she says. "I had cared for my dad and the old man next door, who had leukaemia. When he died his house came up for sale, so we bought it and knocked the connecting wall down.
"The men here are not sick enough to be in a nursing home, and yet they're not able to take care of themselves at home. If they're with us, we can make sure they take their medication and get a proper diet."
The men might rather be at home, but they are contented. "I'm as happy as Larry here," says Eddie Murphy (81).
"If they were all like this they would be doing well," adds Phil O'Reilly (76). They play cards, watch football and go into town together on the bus.
"They do their own thing," says Calder. "It is a home away from home - that's the way they see it. They have their visitors; sometimes their relations take them out for a day. The nurse calls once a week and we see that they are all right.
"After living alone all their lives, of course it takes them a while to settle in. But once they do they love it. Who knows where they'd be if they had to be in their home places?"
In the North Eastern Health Board area, about 40 pensioners are accommodated in this way, in groups of up to six. The scheme has been running for several years, and the board is trying to expand it. Kathleen Curry, the board's director of public-health nursing, is pleased with its success.
"Most of the clients absolutely love it," she says. "It's an excellent way of retaining an older person in the community. When we started out there was a bit of apprehension, but now it has a very good name and the fact that the clients are happy speaks for itself.
"The public-health nurse goes out a minimum of once a month, and will visit as regularly as needed. The assistant director does an inspection every six months to ensure all the requirements are met."
The money is a stumbling block. The hosts say they get £40 a week from the North Eastern Health Board for each person they take in, and the pensioner gives half their pension. In return, the host provides food, cleaning and laundry services, and must be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
"We are looking at that right now," says Curry. "It is a priority to increase the funding and provide a level of day-care support.
"We will always provide respite care, even at short notice, and many householders already have a care attendant going out once a week, to encourage the old people to have a shower."
Those lucky enough to have day care have it only once every few weeks. The hosts do not receive meals-on-wheels, and few get home help.
Inevitably, they sometimes have to wait up for doctors at night and then be up to make breakfast for other guests the next morning. They can put clients into respite care, but there is no holiday pay. But it suits some people very well.
"We have one house where we have all women," says Curry. "The householder is coming up to pension age and was lonely on her own. Now she has other people in and one of the clients has taken over the organisation of the house.
"She'll have the ironing board out, get the others working. When the nurse comes to call, she's the one answering the door. The owner just sits back and lets her get on with it."
In another part of Cavan, Eileen McCann is grateful for being taken into the Brady household. She is only 65 but, as a widow with a son in England, was terrified living on her own after being burgled two years ago. Now she treats five-year-old Hugh as the grandson she doesn't have.
"He's a great character," she says, beaming. The pair go walking, play PokΘmon and tell jokes. She buys him sweets when the travelling shop comes round and he keeps her on her toes. "I love it here. It's one big happy family."
It's certainly a big family: Helen Brady has five teenagers as well as Hugh and takes in six elderly people: three women and three men.
"People say: 'oh my God, I couldn't do it,'" she says. "They think of it as a nightmarish thing. But when you have the same people and they're happy, it works very well.
"The only thing is not getting enough time away, and with the money that comes in I can't afford to hire anyone to help."
Initially, the teenagers were not keen, but they have come round, says Brady. Maintaining the privacy of both family and guests is a priority.
The elderly people live in a separate wing, with their own sitting and dining rooms and tea-making facilities. Visitors can come and go without disturbing the Bradys.
Rose Donohoe, who lives there, has been boarding out for three years. "The company is great," she says. Donohoe is totally blind, from glaucoma.
After her husband died, she lived with her brother, but he became ill around the same time as she went blind and died soon after.
"I lived on my own for five months," she says. "I was in fear all the time, especially at night, and I was lighting the fire on my own. It was impossible."
She is lucky to be in low-level care; the other option would have been a nursing home for the rest of her days.
McCann is also keen on the autonomy. "We can go in and out and do as we like," she says. "It's far, far better than being in a hospital."
So the old people are happy and the health board is happy, because it is also far cheaper than providing hospital care.
But Brady says: "If the money doesn't improve, I am going to stop doing it. I do enjoy it. I know it is a good idea. It is much better than an impersonal nursing home.
"And I wouldn't want to throw people out - they have become part of the family. It's just that there is not much incentive."
Calder adds: "For the time we put into it, the health board are not doing us justice. But I do enjoy what I'm doing - I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it."