Further Thoughts of Retirement…

What we call the beginning is often the endAnd to make and end is to make a beginning.The end is where we start from. from Little Gidding, Four Quartets, by T.S. Eliot. The start of teaching for 2026/7 is approaching at an alarming rate. new and continuing students are registering and today we had a staff meeting in the Department of Physics about arrangements for the new term. This all made me think again about retirement. About three years, while I was in Barcelona on sabbatical , I posted an item about looking forward to retirement. Here is an excerpt from that piece: The fact of the matter is, though, that I can’t afford to retire yet. I have a mortgage to pay and I’ve only had five full years of pensionable service in the Irish system, so won’t get much of a pension. I have the frozen residue of my UK pension, of course, but that is subject to an actuarial reduction if I take the benefit before I’m 65, which is also the standard retirement age for academic staff in Ireland. I…