Dreams made or broken in Lisdoonvarna

A GENTLE breeze bristled through the empty streets of Lisdoonvarna. The setting resembled that of a ghost town that wouldn’t have looked out place in a Clint Eastwood film. Approaching the centre of the village, with a multitude of pubs on either side of the road, it was clear to see where the townspeople were hiding. An unlikely combination of ladies’ pearls, music and a barrage of pints were drawing in the public like moths to a flame.
This was the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival, running until October 7 this year, an event where people of all ages have attended for decades, some with hopes of finding a husband or wife.
It originated as simply a tourist centre, for people from far and wide to come for the unique Lisdoonvarna mineral spa springs, which gave relief to symptoms of diseases, such as glandular fever. The matchmaking tradition began to take shape in September, the peak month of the holiday season.
Today, at the heart of the festival is prolific matchmaker Willie Daly, who nudged 237 couples towards holy matrimony in 2011. The 69 year-old is the last of the old crew of matchmakers left, following  in the tradition of the 150-year-old festival. With a private office in the middle of the town, his passion for pairing duos together has clearly rubbed off on others. These days, his daughter, Claire has also assumed the matchmaking mantle.
The festival has become so internationally acclaimed, that Kerry man, PJ Donovan, could barely containing his excitement.
“Yeah, I’m looking for a woman,” he proudly claimed. “I’ve been coming for the last few years and it’s brilliant. It’s great craic, there’s good music, the whole lot.
“We’re down from the North,” said Valerie Cooper, soaking up the atmosphere with her husband. “We’re staying in Galway, and just passing through. The festival is actually a lot better than it used to be. I was here 30 or 40 years ago, and it was a bit grotty. There’s more people here for the craic now.”
The floors of the pubs were a web of high heels and well-polished leather shoes, with couples tossing and swapping partners after every jig, reel and hornpipe. It was 4pm and the camaraderie, mischief and ‘spraoi’ were flowing as freely as the pints. The men were throwing winks and the women were batting eyelashes, having found their social medium to engage in flirtation frenzy.
However, while the tidal wave of joviality ebbed through the town, not everybody was immersed in the attitude of “incessantly searching for pleasure”.
“So many people come here looking for fun and excitement and to have all their dreams fulfilled,” Phil Payne, a local of the area for eight years, began. “They go home, and you can see it on their faces – they’re so unhappy and miserable because they don’t find what they’re looking for. Life’s about an awful lot more than whether you can find a lady to spend some time with, or where you can find some drink. Lots of people don’t understand that you can have a relationship with God.”
Some life was breathed back onto the streets as a gaggle of American women spilled out from a bar, singing with merriment, whilst donning cowboy hats. Whether suitable partners were found for them is irrelevant.
The festival has become so synonymous with the craic that the word has spread to all corners of the globe, drawing in close to 40,000 every year. It would seem that the matchmaking process is now just a bonus to an occasion, which allows people the opportunity to swig a few pints, dance a few jigs and soak up an atmosphere that is so quintessentially rural Irish.