Love may not last forever – but your tattoo surely will

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There are few things to turn the stomach more effectively than the sight of an ancient tattoo on some part of an old age pensioner’s crinkled anatomy.

That’s not to suggest I have any predilection for oogling old people – it’s just a fact of life that there comes a time when one’s skin is best kept under wraps. And, begging the pardon of veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby who had his first tattoo this week, if there’s one extra reason for keeping it hidden, it’s the presence of a mistake from your youth.

Tattoos might seem like a really good idea when you’re 22 and off your face in Ibiza – but the problem is that these inky escapades don’t disappear with your hangover.

And fifty years on, after you’ve forgotten your own name – never mind Ibiza – ‘I love Mum’ will still be there to haunt you. The best you can hope for is that you had it drawn in such a secure place that the only one who will ever get to see it now is your geriatric nurse.

Obviously tattoos are a matter of taste and there are serious aficionados who can cover every inch of skin with ink if they so desire. And there are some tasteful tats that won’t cause you to swerve onto the footpath in shock and horror.

But then there’s overkill – the enthusiast who’d shave the top of their head just to make space for another work of art.

Take professional footballers – not the brightest race on the planet in the first place – who now feel that it’s important to completely cover your body in draws of everything from the Virgin Mary to Sci-Fi and the names of their children….or at least the ones they’re paying maintenance for.

Maybe there were tattoos before David Beckham, but it would be hard to see Bobby Charlton or Denis Law or Johnny Giles with love heart on their backs and massive wings on their shoulder blades.

And of course you don’t have to be a sports star to be addicted to tattoos – Sinead O’Connor is a veritable pin cushion at this stage, such is the amount of art on her anatomy. There are, quite conceivably, housing estates in Dublin’s north inner city with less graffiti.

The former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson has something on the side of his head that looks like he walked into a concrete wall and had stitches applied by someone whose previous experience was in the world of patchwork quilting.

But what he has actually done is managed to inflict greater destruction on his own face than his opponents ever managed in the ring.   

Iron Mike is in the happy position that he knows it would take a brave man to poke fun at his body art – but someday Mike will be an old man, and the side of his face will look like an alien.

Because while tats on a toned body are one thing, crumpled drawings on a body that now has skin with the texture of the peel of an old orange left too long in direct sunlight is a different matter entirely.

You wouldn’t want your granddad going around with Love and Hate tattooed on his knuckles any more than you’d want to discover your granny had nipple rings.

And we’ve all committed indiscretions in own younger days that we’d prefer to forget in the fullness of time – but if you’ve had it emblazoned in permanent ink, you’re stuck with either a permanent reminder or a big bill for laser removal.

What started out as a drunken dare – or sometimes a last shot at holding back the onset of middle age – will stay with you forever.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.