A quiet day for love in Lisdoon

FRIDAY, September 9. The Town Hall in Lisdoonvarna was dimly lit and fairly stuffy, with only half the ceiling fans working. Shay O’Callaghan was onstage, providing the raucous soundtrack to the dancing, a mash-up of nostalgic melodies.
The black curtains hung limply, contrasting with the blue, red and white of the walls rather meekly. Overhead, windows threw dapples of light on the floorboards, illuminating the dancers that limbered through them but also highlighting the glumness of the hall. While the dance floor had its attendees, they were sparsely arranged.
The guys taking money at the door admitted that numbers weren’t looking great so far. Average age: probably around 60. All in all, love wasn’t really in the air.
As I was to find out, or perhaps, as I should have already known, that isn’t so much the point of the festival anymore. Matchmaking, an age-old tradition and a prominent idiosyncrasy of our cultural backlog, is quite obviously dying out.
Willie Daly, the last-remaining official instigator of haphazard love, takes charge in Lisdoonvarna every year. The banner outside his workplace reads, ‘Marriages are made in heaven, but… most people meet in the Matchmakers’ Bar’. Not much of that takes place anymore though, save the odd pre-arranged and pre-planned encounter. It’s hardly a surprise, what with the emergence of texting and online social networking and matchmaking sites (there’s even a Willie Daly matchmaking website now). Nevertheless, the show carries on. Each year, thousands flock to the village for what is dubbed ‘Europe’s largest singles’ event’, running from September to the start of October.
Back in the Town Hall, the folks danced away with an admirable vitality and spirit. ‘The Slosh’, despite how the name sounds, saw several lines formed with regulative precision. One particular old-timer danced and clapped away like the years were rolling off him. The Taxi Dance, accompanied by Shay’s rendition of Ring of Fire, saw women and men form separate lines and match up with whoever they corresponded with for a quick dance. Brief breaks for water, it seemed, were the only times people quit moving and it quickly became evident that dancing was at the heart of things. Take away the few that didn’t get up once and you’ve got a room full of jovial, energised partakers.
“No one refuses a dance,” assured local, Patrick Haugh, “everyone here knows each other. As well as that, you get every type down from every county. I’ve been coming here 40 years. It may not look busy now, but just wait until next week.”
Patrick told me that the first weekend saw all of 10 people turn up and that the crowd now is nothing to go on. Despite not being a drinker, he provided me with an anecdote that more or less sums up what any Irish event boils down to. “An American was down here and he asked us ‘What time do the bars close?’ to which we replied ‘October 1!’”
Outdoors, things weren’t much different. There were a couple of mainstays to bump into and have a chat with but most seemed more interested in who I was and why I had a notepad. The weather was dull, with the omnipresent threat of rain beckoning. Consequently, the surrounding pubs were alive with dancing and music. I visited the Town Square to talk to an eccentric character, Ryan Daniels – unbeknownst to me, a well-known former Irish country singer. Donned in jeans, a chequered shirt and a cowboy hat, his shrill northern Irish accent rang out as he offered punters the chance to take home his CDs at one-off great-value prices. He was as chatty as his public persona would suggest. “I’ve nine CDs altogether, I haven’t sold too many the last couple of years but I still come down here; I’ve been coming down here for as long as I can remember. I’m from Tyrone and was a musician for 25 years, retired now. I’ll be up and down for the month, my wife’s quite sick you see. I just really enjoy it here.” Jim Ronan, from Newcastle West, is a widower who has been attending for 40 years. “I just love dancing and the craic and the beer. I’d say my favourite dance is the old-time waltz, though I like the quick step and tango too. The place is fairly deserted now, next week will be much busier but it’ll never be as busy as it used to be.” 
As soon as I finished talking to him, he and a few others burst into song right there on the street, almost like a foreboding swan song for a festival that used to be so much more. It’s hard to say how much the event will flourish having only been there for an afternoon but going by the general consensus of those present, it has died down a fair bit in recent years. Is there a place for this sort of fortuitous love anymore, or even just long-lasting events of its scale? After the entire media hubbub, even Sinéad O’Connor left empty-handed.