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This chapter discusses the family life stage of ‘grandparenthood’ and addresses topical questions about flows of help and support between older and younger generations, and the increasing significance of grandparents in the lives of children and young adults. Ireland’s ‘new’ grandparents are distinctive, in part because many started their own families at comparatively younger ages and because of the ‘longevity revolution’ – the increased duration of healthy ageing - making them available to contribute to the family lives of their children and grandchildren to an unprecedented extent. The chapter uncovers compelling evidence that grandparents have consistently been held in high regard in Irish families and that they continue to play a central part in facilitating family connectedness and providing a sense of family continuity over time. It argues that power in inter-generational relationships shifted in favour of parents during the last century, and that the grandparental role remains an ambivalent one, despite parents growing need for help with childcare and other resources. As grandparents age, the flow of resources changes direction. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the challenges faced by Irish families and the Irish state as they plan to meet a growing demand for elder care.

Chapter Seven, the concluding chapter, ties the book’s themes together. It offers a series of reflections on the ethnographic method and older age by directly addressing this thematic strand that weaves throughout the volume. In particular, it considers the merits of ethnography, and the challenges ethnography presents, for grappling with everyday experiences, inter-generational assumptions and social interactions that forge the ageing self.

This chapter discusses the extension of ‘early adulthood’ in contemporary Ireland. It traces changes in the transition to independent household formation amongst young adults, from tightly ordered and sequenced around the middle of the twentieth century, towards a pattern of ‘unbundling’ from the latter half of the twentieth century onwards. Unbundling is explained in the context of changing meanings and values around sexual intercourse, cohabitation, birth outside marriage and lone parenthood throughout this period. Narratives from the Life Histories and Social Change collection reveal how such experiences were often disguised in the past and how, just as today, middle and upper-class people were frequently better able to cope with the consequences of disorderly transitions. They also show how young adults worked to maintain family relationships in the context of migration and return in different historical times. The authors show how the transformation of early adulthood took place in the context of changing inter-generational power relations, as Ireland moved from a social structure centred on small property holding to one with increasing opportunities for economic survival through waged employment. The chapter includes a discussion of public debates around the ‘de-institutionalization of marriage’ and marriage equality for same-sex couples.