Hoping for a match at Lisdoonvarna

AS August gives way to September, the annual Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival kicks off and thousands of hopeful singletons will be making their way to North Clare.

While the economic outlook is bleak, hotelier Robert Hurley says he’s quite hopeful the festival will still draw the crowds.

“The bookings seem to be coming in the same as ever, so we’re expecting it to be the same as last year, that’s what we’re hoping for. As you know, the recession is hitting everything but the farmers always have a few bob in the back pocket for Lisdoonvarna.”

He says the festival offers entertainment of a type that’s very hard to find elsewhere. “There’s mid-week dancing and dancing during the day. There’s no place else where you can start at 12 o’clock in the day, have lunch, come back again until 5pm, have dinner and dance until 1.30am that night. At the weekends, you have a mixture of young and old, with the dancing and the discos. It’s the only place where you’d get an 18-year-old and a 60-year-old together.”

While it’s internationally known as the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival, he says most of those who arrive are actually married and are there to dance.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy for celebrated matchmaker Willie Daly. He is also expecting quite big crowds. “I’m quite surprised that a lot of the accommodation is booked out. It’s great that given the year that’s in it, it’s still like that.”

The festival keeps him busy for many months afterwards. “What we find is that after the festival, the numbers are boosted for the rest of the year. We’d find that at this time, or a month earlier, we’d be running out of people a little bit from the previous year. But the festival swells the numbers again so it’s great in that sense.

“It’s a wonderful festival in the sense that it’s a great opportunity for people who are looking for companionship or friendship. It’s known as the matchmaking festival so there’s no great mystery why people are at it but of course not everyone who attends is looking for a husband or wife. Quite a significant number of people come looking for a partner, to find love and be happy. It’s extremely well-known throughout Ireland and it’s a great opportunity for people to have a nice time before the winters, which are very long and can be very monotonous for a lot of people. It’s an opportunity to find someone to share the long winter evenings with.”

While very many of his clients are quite mature, he says it can be hard for younger people to form relationships nowadays. “Sometimes, I’m a little surprised with it. Maybe it’s the disco scene with an awful lot of loud noise and it’s difficult to talk to anyone or get to know people. We’re surprised with the amount of younger people who say it’s difficult to meet a nice person. A lot of women say it’s hard to meet a nice man. I think, myself, that young people are nearly obliged to act differently when they’re at those venues like discos, if they’re very nice, I think they fit in and they realise they have to act differently, which is kind of regrettable but maybe it goes with being very young as well.”

Others can focus on their careers to the detriment of their personal lives. “For a lot of people, it’s a very big thing to go pursuing love and happiness. We’d often find that some people would be very successful and career-orientated for a long time, maybe too long sometimes and wouldn’t have devoted the amount of time necessary to finding love. maybe their career would be a shelter to absorb themselves in.”

However, he says these people are a little easier to cater for than was once the case. “We’ll probably introduce a few thousand people over the festival but it’d be hard to say how many of them will get together. It has got easier from our perspective, the women are a little less fussy and it’s very much about looking for a nice, genuine person. There isn’t much talk about big finances. People are looking to find someone nice and it’s a long pursuit, finding that nice person that you like,” he concluded.