Ireland: Romance tourism booms in matchmaking month
鈥� A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor corresondent.
Like many villages on Ireland鈥檚 west coast, Lisdoonvarna (pop. 800) is a quiet, low-key sort of place 鈥� except in September.
That鈥檚 when some 40,000 revelers descend on the village from all over Ireland and farther afield with one thing on their minds: romance.
The village鈥檚 150-year-old Matchmaking Festival is the largest of its kind in Europe, and it utterly transforms this sleepy place.
In Lisdoonvarna in September, love is a religion and its messiah is Willy Daly, Ireland鈥檚 last remaining matchmaker. 鈥淢atchmaking would be a kind of a magical thing,鈥� he says, stroking his beard in the sun outside his house on a recent weekend.
Matchmaking has its roots in the business aspect of marriage that was pervasive in rural Irish society until the mid-1900s. A matchmaker was often a horse or livestock broker 鈥� someone with a bird鈥檚-eye view of the assets and fortunes of farmers from a wide area 鈥� and therefore equipped to match young men and women from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Lisdoonvarna began as a horse fair, but the horses soon gave way to dancing.
Mr. Daly, a third-generation matchmaker, gets calls and e-mails all year round from men and women looking for love, and he records every detail in his 鈥渂ible鈥� 鈥� a tattered and torn notebook more than a hundred years old.
鈥淧eople say if you touch it, you鈥檙e going to get married inside of six months. It鈥檚 the center of what I do,鈥� he says.
Ireland鈥檚 $9 billion annual tourism industry has shrunk 10 percent this year. Lisdoonvarna, though, takes in $4.5 million in September alone, thanks to an unusual natural resource that, for one month at least, is recession-proof.
