Enterprise the answer for older car renters?

Maximum age limits on car rentals can be a major impediment to older emigrants who would like to return home for a visit, Sheila Gleeson of the Coalition for Irish Immmigration Centers in the US has told your correspondent.

Éan has done some research on this, and it seems that this type of discrimination is actually legal, as insurance companies may discriminate on an age basis as long as they can claim it is for commercial reasons.

We have discovered, however, that Enterprise Rent-A-Car has no upper age limit, and does not impose an insurance surcharge on older renters.

Hertz will rent to drivers up to the age of 79 if the driver has:
- a letter from a doctor to say he or she has been in good health for the last year
- a letter from the driver's insurance company saying he or she has not been in an accident for the last five years.

Alamo and National rent cars to those up to 74.
Europcar rents only up to 70.
Avis age limits range from 65 to 74, depending on the type of car.

More information on maximum car rentals is available at about.com.

Emigrants' NY memoirs published by Aisling Center

"While Mem'ry Brings Us Back Again" is a volume of memoirs by Irish emigrants who moved to the U.S. between 1927-1964. Compiled by Frances Browner, organizer of the Aisling Center’s “Young at Heart” group, the book details the experiences of 35 different individuals from 18 different counties.

“Far from their families, friends and everything they were used to. Every one of them overcame homesickness and the challenges of a new world and built fine lives for themselves in this great country,” said Tim O’Connor, Consul General of Ireland, at the launch of the book on November 28. “These stories will delight, absorb and uplift you. They also underline again the amazing story of the Irish in America and just how good this country has been to millions of our people."

Browner says of the emigrants' recollections: “I was transported back 50 years and plunged into a place that was already forgotten by the time of my own arrival in 1987. Why did I not know all this before? Putting this book together may help keep these memories alive for future generations of Irish Americans to know what it was like to be a new arrival.”

New York's Daily News carries a report on last week's launch, in which it profiles Frank Bergin, an 82-year-old who moved to NY just before the 1929 stock market crash. He recounts being shot in Alsace in 1945 while fighting in World War II; he went on to become the president of the Irish Business Organisation of New York and still works selling real estate.

Order the book at the Aisling Center website.

There's a 30-minute documentaryon the project and its launch available on YouTube. (Well worth watching!)