Creedon’s Retro Roadtrip stops off at matchmaking festival

THE Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival is set to feature in the new RTÉ series, Creedon’s Retro Roadtrip.
In the series, John Creedon retraces the route of the only holiday his entire family ever took together. In 1969, John and his 11 siblings were loaded into his father’s enormous Mercedes and those who wouldn’t fit were piled into a borrowed caravan, before the family took off for a two-week road trip around the country.
More than 40 years later, he took off on his own journey, retracing the family’s footprints, looking at how the country has changed and visiting places captured on grainy homemade footage and in black and white photographs.
The series started last Sunday and the third episode will feature Clare, where John met Crusheen-based seanachaí Eddie Lenihan, someone he said, he had a “great laugh” with.
It also features a trip to the famous Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival, which he said was quite bittersweet.
“We spent two days there and we were kind of press-ganged into helping Willie Daly and his daughter. People might scoff at it but a lot of the people who we met there were very genuine. I remember, I met one man who was in his late 70s and when I asked him what his interests were, he said walking in nature. I asked him was there anything else and first of all, he said ‘no’ but then he said he wrote a bit of poetry. I was just thinking what a find he’d be for someone.
“I met another fella who said welding was a hobby and I was trying to find a rich millionairess with an interest in welding. We also met a lovely couple who were from Meath and Dublin and who met at Lisdoonvarna three years ago. We had great craic there and there were real people involved. It was an eye opener. People might poke fun at it but I came away with a tinge of sadness because of the reality of people being alone,” John said.
When he visited Belfast in 1969, it was a city on the brink of a quarter of a century of sectarian violence. Back there last summer, he says he was “embedded” with Orangemen for July 12. “It was an eye-opener, I don’t think I ever felt so out of place.”
However, he said the people treated him very well, even though he had one or two anxious moments.
“There was a lot of street drinking going on. At one point, I got a tap on the shoulder and a guy who was wearing a sash said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’ Then he said, ‘Are you one of the judges on the All-Ireland Talent Show?’ so it turned out ok.”
John said Ireland has a lot to offer the wanderer and that, fundamentally, the country is in good shape.
“Without ever looking, I’ve had great trips through the job. I’ve been to places like Israel and China. I’ve travelled quite a bit but it’s hard to beat Ireland. It’s kind of a soft-focus, state-of-nation programme and I think it’s in a good state. We have had a fiscal blow to the solar plexus but, like other young democracies, we are growing up and maturing. Although the tide is gone out, we are left with things like a motorway network and a lot of environmental work has been done.
“Socially, the ban on foreign games is gone, you can’t be thrown into jail for being gay, we have equal pay for men and women, Section 31 is gone. If you look at the archives, you can see how shy and powerless people used to be compared to now,” John concluded.