Farmers back in vogue at Lisdoonvarna

FARMERS, AT the expense of builders, are back in vogue with women looking for romance at this year’s Lisdoonvarna match-making festival.

That is according to resident match-maker Willie Daly, who yesterday explained what is an unanticipated impact of the recession.

Speaking at the month-long match-making festival – billed as Europe’s largest singles’ event, Mr Daly said: “The farmers are back in vogue this year. The women place great value on the farming community and the likes of the building contractors would not be as popular as other years.

“A builder could build you 100 houses, but at the moment, who would want them? But you can’t make an acre, there is great security in the land. At times like this, it stands out,” said Mr Daly, who has 40 years’ experience of match-making.

At about 1pm on the Main Street in Lisdoonvarna, Westport woman Mary O’Connell was en route to a date along with a friend to meet a Corkman and a Tipperary man they met at a dance on Friday night.

Of Mr Daly’s analysis, she said: “I think he’s right. A farmer will always make a living. We have both met guys here and we’re on our way to meet them now.”

At packed pubs across the town at lunchtime, couples were jiving and waltzing to music that was set to continue late into the night.

In The Ritz, Lawrence Campion told the crowd: “Okay, we’re going to have a few quick steps.” Within thirty seconds, the empty dance floor filled with couples.

Looking on, John Cavanagh from Kildysart, Co Clare, said: “The atmosphere at the festival is brilliant and the women are easy on the eye.” He said, however, he would be doing without the services of a match-maker. “I have got lucky here in the past, but I never held on to to any of them.”

Dublin woman Catherine McKeown said: “I’m not here for the match-making. I’m here for the dancing. Jiving is my sport and you start at midday and it goes on all day. It’s brilliant.”

Mr Daly said that with more men unemployed “it gives them more time to woo a woman and to make her feel very special”. He pointed out that “an amazing transformation” takes place in a lot of men attending the festival with some drink taken.

Early in the day, some of them would be shy and bashful, he said. “But by 11 or 12pm they would be breaking down the walls to meet a woman . . . Lisdoonvarna is a place for older people to find inspiration and find love. It is a marvellous thing to find love.”

The biggest enemy for women at the festival, which runs until the end of the month, “is choice”, he added. “At times, you could have nine men for every woman . . . the women can’t make up their minds and don’t meet anyone.”