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Anyone in Lisdoonvarna will be able to tell you where to find Willie Daly. He?ll be in his ?office? in the Matchmaker Bar, the epicentre of matchmaking in the town.
The weather is fickle in Ireland.
Early this morning was a mixture of low cloud and heavy rain; very different from the sweltering 95 degrees that we left behind in New York on Friday. But now only a few hours later looking out over the Atlantic from the southern end of Galway Bay there are swathes of blue sky. We narrowly escaped hurricane Earl in America so whatever weather Ireland chucks at us will be far less dramatic.
Ireland’s west coast has some of the most stunning scenery in Europe. There are motorways and fast dual carriageways criss-crossing the country that have been built since Ireland joined the EU, but here on the west coast the pace is slower, the roads twisty and undulating.
The view is never anything less than stunning as you drive along the coast. It’s one of the world’s great scenic drives, as dramatic as the California’s Pacific Coast Highway.
But before we head inland to Galway and then pick up the new fast road to Dublin we’re stopping off in Lisdoonvarna for the annual matchmaking festival where we shall meet County Clare’s very own cupid – the amazing Willie Daly, master matchmaker.
Anyone in Lisdoonvarna will be able to tell you where to find Willie Daly. He’ll be in his ‘office’ in the Matchmaker Bar, the epicentre of matchmaking in the town.
White hair swept back, thick white and grey beard, Daly has been pairing up folks for 43 years. His father and grandfather were both matchmakers but Willie has taken the art to a new level. And according to Willie it is an art, stirred in with a bit of experience and luck.
‘You can tell when people are right together by their physical compatibility,’ explains Daly. ‘The psychological and emotional bit is not quite so easy,’ In front of him on his wooden table is a six-inch thick wad of papers loosely tied to together by a piece of string. This tattered bundle is a cross between bible, handbook, archive and accounts book. Within are the secrets from three generations of matchmakers.
Willie Daly has been responsible for around 2,000 trips down the aisle. Matchmaking started because rural farmers had great difficulty in meeting potential partners because there was barely any time for them to leave their crops.
So to help, special matchmaking festivals were held. Lisdoonvarna’s modern matchmaking festival is the biggest singles’ event in Europe and lasts for the whole month of September. There’s dancing throughout night and day and of course many pints of Guinness pass across the town’s many bars.
And those in search of love don’t just come from Ireland and Europe. This year Daly is expecting a women’s rugby team and a group from Japan.
‘You find that many Irishmen rather quiet early in the evening and it’s a problem to get them talking. But then later when they’ve drunk fifteen pints of Guinness you can’t shut them up and that’s when the proposing starts.
‘I can’t imagine matchmaking working like it does here anyway else in Europe. We Irish are relaxed, live spontaneously and like a drink to loosen up,’ says Daly. Many of the other Europeans are too repressed and introverted.
The happily married members of the Fiesta World Tour team wave a farewell to Willie Daly and the group of lonely hearts already queuing up for an audience with Lisdoonvarna’s Mr Cupid.
Leaving Lisdoonvarna’s lonely hearts we hit the N18 to Galway and then after a few miles take the new motorway towards Dublin. It seems as though our pair of Fiestas are chasing the storm clouds as we run away from the blue skies over the Atlantic coast and aim instead for the gloom to the East.
The pace of life has changed enormously in Ireland over the last few years. This 200km drive from Galway to Dublin would have once been a morning’s drive over chipped and crumbling roads. There wouldn’t have been much traffic, perhaps Patraig rumbling along on his old Ford tractor on his way to the pub.
The volume of traffic is heavier today, but it’s free flowing and fast. Those old country roads are still quiet if you fancy taking the low road and properly seeing rural Ireland.
Those who haven’t seen Dublin since the 1980s will be even more amazed by the progress. Or is it progress? A motorway curls around to the west of the city and a new tunnel leads to Dublin dock and the river Liffey where we’re meeting Pearse O’Loughlin from Ford Ireland.
O’Loughlin is wiser than his quests and is equipped with a large umbrella. We spot him standing next to the newest bridge over Dublin’s river. Opened only last year, this modern white suspension bridge is named after Irish playright Samuel Beckett. The Liffey, grand that it is, unfortunately is not long enough to need the number of bridges required to give each a name from Irish literature. Wilde, Behan, Joyce, there are too many of them.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will take Irish Ferries’ high speed service to Holyhead. If the rough weather persists we’ll simply take the slower ferry. It’s Ireland, there is no rush.
