Single? Totally Over Tinder? Then Try This Matchmaking Festival

A matchmaking festival held in the middle of nowhere is calling you.

Lios Dúin Bhearna (or if you don’t speak Irish, Lisdoonvarna)  is a tiny town of around 800 people in County Clare. In September every year, the population of this tiny town swells like sore head while a large matchmaking event takes place, attracting singles from all over Europe. In fact around 40,000 people attend, hoping to catch themselves a fine Irish spouse, a very valuable prize these days.

A family tradition

While there is still a fourth-generation matchmaker on hand at the event, the festival has now evolved into a party where singles can find someone without necessarily seeking the approval of a matchmaker. September is the peak month of the matching session, and this traditionally was down to farming realties: with the harvest safely in, bachelor farmers could have some free time to search for a pretty lass, without having to juggle reaping with dating. And let’s face it, getting ready for a date is a full time job. There’s no time for ploughing at the same time.

Internet dating

Over the past decade, with a rise in internet dating, the festival has seen numbers drop off somewhat. But recently, the numbers have surged once again. Many people are becoming disillusioned with internet dating, saying that the pictures posted on dating sites can be old or misleading. But also they like meeting the person “in person” and that way they will know if there is any craic.

If you attend the matchmaking festival, you can leave the worries of photoshopped profile pictures behind. And if you meet someone in person who has a bad smell, you can pretend to drop a contact lens and crawl off to the nearest emergency exit.

So thus the appeal of a match-making festival: you get to try before you buy. And getting to know someone by just striking up a conversation is a lost art. But it is being revived at Lisdoonvarna, if you know how to talk to a farmer. You’d better study up on phytonutrients and fast.

These days the festival isn’t as formal as it used to be when it comes to matchmaking. Traditionally, the matchmaker would pair up people he assumed were star-crossed lovers, and he even attended their first date. But now you can just turn up and it is enough. Hopefully someone attractive to you will spill a drink on you in any number of pubs and events across the town during the festival. Being splattered with Guinness is still a good opening move.

Matchmaking Festival Dancing

The dancing and carry-on begins on most days about midday, and continues until the early hours of the morning. So you have to pace yourself and shop around a bit. Just be prepared. This isn’t a place full of cosmopolitan singles in pants so trendy that they glow in the dark. No, this is an affair that attracts people from 18 to 80 and by 80 I mean possibly 120. And when I say 120 I mean these old dudes are the last ones in the pub. They are the ones who have to be forcibly removed as the sun rises.

If you are a bit awkward, then there are organised events that singletons can attend. These provide great social lubrication in the battle to strike up a conversation with someone hot. The events are focused on activities such as horse racing. Other events stuffed full of country music and dancing (get sneaky lessons before you go, obviously). And then there is the peak event– the crowning of the Queen of the Burren and Mr Lisdoonvarna. But you’ll find modern singles events in the mix too, like speed dating. So you must brush up on your speedy small talk and hyper-flattery skills before you attend.

A hit in China

If you want an Irish spouse, you’d better get in quick: the Irish Matchmaking Festival has become a hit in China. Traditionally in China, matchmakers have always been very well received in putting together marriages. Thus Chinese singles are very receptive to coming to Ireland to meet an Irish farmer.  One matchmaker has said that 12 Chinese nationals he fixed up with Irish farmers have walked down the aisle. While it is mostly Chinese women looking for Irish men, this could change as the one-child policy comes of age. Soon millions of Chinese lads will be over here, sparring for that hot Irish rural lady with good road frontage.

Lisdoonvarna

So why Lisdoonvarna for Ireland’s annual matchmaking festival?  Well it seems that Lisdoonvarna was attracting people from all over Ireland as a holiday spot well before formal matchmaking took place. The town developed into a tourist centre as early as the middle of the 18th-century when a top Limerick surgeon discovered the beneficial effects of its mineral waters. People travelled from near and far to bathe in, and drink, the mineral waters. Rich in iron, sulphur and magnesium, the waters gave relief from the symptoms of certain diseases including rheumatism and glandular fever.

The Spa Hotel was the centre around which the village developed. Soon a train line was thrown down and people got themselves fancy motorcars. But even before then tourists travelled in pony and trap to get to ‘The Spa.’ It was due to the popularity of the mineral springs and the huge amount of people going there that led to the Lisdoonvarna matchmaking tradition.

Matchmaking Festival: September is the month to remember

September became the peak month of the holiday season and with the harvest safely in, bachelor farmers flocked to Lisdoonvarna in search of a wife. By the 1920s, matchmaking was still in vogue and people continued to come and “take the waters,” including many of Ireland’s clergy. It was around this time that one of Lisdoonvarna’s most famous sayings was coined, describing the town as a place “where parish priests pretend to be sober and bank clerks pretend to be drunk.”

Today, the most famous Matchmaker is Willie Daly, who is a farmer and a publican, and he also has a riding school. He thinks he was born on the first of April 1943, though he can’t be sure because the priest who recorded the date was “very fond of the drink.” He has lived in Ballingaddy all of his life and still lives next door to the 300-year-old cottage where he was born. During the festivities, you’ll find him in his office with his precious notebook of love-seeking profiles. His office is otherwise known as the snug of The Matchmaker bar.

Queuing behind his table is a line of hopeful singles, all ages and nationalities, crossing their fingers and entrusting the man in charge to find them a mate. You may even find the fourth generation of this matchmaking dynasty, Willie’s daughter, Claire, also in attendance, ready to hook you up.

If you want to know more about the romantic nouse possessed by Willie Day, you can read his book. Buy it here.

The Matchmaking Festival takes place in September. Details are here.