Join us on Wednesday, 4th November for our next webinar!
📅 Date: Wednesday 4 November 2026
⏰ Time: 2:00 – 3:00pm (GMT)
🎤 Speaker:Dr Nikki Dunne
Family Carers Ireland’s State of Caring 2026 report gives a national picture of the experiences and challenges facing family carers in Ireland. Drawing on responses from almost 3,000 carers, it looks at the financial, practical, social and emotional realities of caring, including access to services and respite, transport, wellbeing and social connection.
This webinar focuses in on what the findings tell us about loneliness and isolation among family carers. Dr Dunne will explore how the intensity and duration of caring, limited opportunities for breaks, financial pressures and difficulties taking part in work and social life can all feed into loneliness. She will also look at what carers themselves say would make the biggest difference to their lives, and what that means for policy, services and future research on loneliness.
Dr Nikki Dunne is the Research Manager with Family Carers Ireland, the national charity supporting the estimated 620,000 family carers across the country. These carers look after loved ones including children or adults with physical or intellectual disabilities, frail older people, people with palliative care needs, and those living with chronic illness, mental ill-health or addiction.
Nikki leads the organisation’s programme of research and evaluation and manages a diverse range of qualitative and quantitative projects relating to family carers. She is particularly focused on building and coordinating research involvement and engagement among family carers, researchers and other stakeholders. Nikki has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where she was based at the Centre for Families and Relationships.
We are delighted to announce an upcoming conference hosted by the Loneliness Taskforce Research Network.
📅 Date: Tuesday, 26th May 2026
🕙 Time: 9.15am – 4pm
📍 Location: Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission; 16-22 Green Street, Dublin 7, D07 CR20
About the Conference
Loneliness is a growing public health concern with consequences for both physical and mental wellbeing. This conference will bring together people working with individuals experiencing loneliness to learn about the mutual impacts of loneliness and health on one another.
Our event, which will take place on the 26th of May, is open to service providers, policymakers, government employees, researchers, and anyone affected by loneliness.
Speakers
We are pleased to announce the following speakers, with more to be announced:
Dr. Ann-Marie Creaven — Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Limerick
Dr. Julie Christiansen — Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Southern Denmark
Dr Fabian Sweeney, School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Dr. Joanna McHugh Power — Maynooth University, Chair of the Loneliness Taskforce Research Network
A Call for People with Lived Experience of Loneliness
We strongly encourage people with lived experience of loneliness to attend and participate in the day. Your voice and insights are a vital part of this conversation, and we want this event to reflect the real experiences of those affected by loneliness in Ireland.
Why This Matters
The discussions we hope to have at this conference will feed directly into the ongoing strategic work of the LTRN and the Loneliness Taskforce as they continue to campaign for a meaningful, coordinated governmental response to loneliness in Ireland.
Attendees will learn new insights about the associations between loneliness and health, and about interventions that work to address loneliness.
ALONE, as provider of secretariat and coordination support for both bodies, is proud to play a role in making this event happen.
Register Now
Attendance is free, but places are limited. We encourage you to register early to secure your place and be part of this important national conversation.
We look forward to welcoming you on the 26th of May.
This event has been made possible through grant funding from the Health Research Board and coordination and planning from Maynooth University and ALONE.
Our latest session featured a deep dive into the critical intersections of loneliness and its association with suicidal thoughts and behaviours. We were joined by Dr. Gretta Mohan, recipient of the 2025 Barrington Medal, who shared her latest findings from a collaboration between the ESRI and the HSE’s National Office for Suicide Prevention.
Key Highlights of the talk: The “Loneliness Capital”: The discussion contextualized Ireland’s current standing as the loneliest member state in the EU and how this status correlates with public health trends and other factors impacting feelings of loneliness in Ireland. Data-Driven Insights: Dr. Mohan explored fresh data from the 2021 and 2023 Healthy Ireland surveys, specifically looking at how loneliness impacts suicide attempts versus suicidal ideation differently across different ages and gender.
The presentation was followed by an engaging Q&A, where Gretta addressed numerous questions from the audience, further exploring the nuances of her findings. Content Warning: This recap and the associated webinar discuss suicide attempts and ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to local support services or Samaritans Ireland.
Join us on Monday, 23rd February for our first 2026 webinar!
📅 Date: Monday 23 February 2026
⏰ Time: 3:00 – 4:00pm (GMT)
🎤 Speaker:Dr Gretta Mohan
Content warning: this webinar will discuss suicide attempt and ideation.
Suicide remains a major global public health crisis, and understanding its risk factors is essential for prevention. This webinar will present important new research examining the relationship between loneliness and suicidal thoughts and behaviours in post-pandemic Ireland.
Ireland offers a significant case study – the country experienced elevated suicide rates following the Great Recession and has recently been ranked as the European Union’s loneliest member state. This research uses data from the 2021 and 2023 Healthy Ireland surveys to provide fresh insights into how loneliness distinctly relates to both suicide attempts and suicidal ideation.
About the Speaker: Dr Gretta Mohan
Dr Gretta Mohan is a Senior Research Officer at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) with expertise in health economics. She manages the ESRI’s Electronic Communications Research Programme, focusing on the connections between our digital lives and loneliness.
Dr Mohan was awarded the prestigious Barrington Medal in 2025 for her groundbreaking paper on loneliness in Ireland and its mental health impacts. She is currently conducting vital research with the HSE’s National Office for Suicide Prevention exploring the links between loneliness and suicide experiences.
LTRN member, Mark Ward is one of six Irish researchers to be awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant 2025. This award provides €2 million in funding over a five-year period to support his research on loneliness from a global perspective.
Mark’s project – GLOMoL – Global study of the macro- and individual-level causes and consequences of loneliness, will bring together data from over 30 countries and a quarter of a million individuals. His team will use this unique data infrastructure to explore the reasons why we observe large differences in the prevalence and consequences of loneliness in different countries.
Crucially, Mark aims to move away from focusing solely on the characteristics and experiences of individuals in explaining loneliness, to a broader conceptualisation of the issue that recognises the importance of the context within which individuals live. This will provide new and important insights by identifying the cultural, economic, political and social factors that can be leveraged to protect individuals and societies against the worst effects of loneliness.
In announcing this award, Mark says “I am incredibly grateful to be awarded this prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant for GLOMoL. This award provides a unique opportunity to build a novel global data infrastructure on the important public health issue of loneliness. With support to recruit a team of talented PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, GLOMoL will provide a new lens through which to understand how loneliness is shaped across different societies. This research will position Irish research, the GLOMoL team, and Trinity College Dublin, as world leaders in loneliness research”.
Dr. Mark Ward is a Senior Research Fellow at The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College Dublin and member of the Loneliness Taskforce Research Network. His research focuses on social disconnection among older adults and its impact on health and well-being. Mark led TILDA’s COVID-19 sub-study examining pandemic impacts on older adults and currently serves as Principal Investigator on a U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded study exploring the link between social disconnection and passive suicide ideation. He has published extensively on loneliness, social isolation, mental health, and quality of life.
