The Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking festival, "Europe's biggest singles festival", gets under way in the otherwise quiet north Clare town this weekend.
Willie Daly, resident matchmaker for the past 40 years, said yesterday: "It is like a wild party. It is a mad month of great atmosphere. There are busloads of women from England on their way here looking for a partner and a little romance."
He said: "There is nowhere like it in the world. There is nowhere else where you can walk up to a strange woman and ask her to marry you and not get a slap in the face."
Mr Daly said that dancing in the spa town would start at 11am each day and continue during the afternoon and night.
Mr Daly said: "One woman came from England last year. She was good looking, but she only had one leg and wasn't expecting to be asked to dance at all and within the first 24 hours, she had three proposals of marriage."
Mr Daly added: "People owe it to themselves to find happiness and they shouldn't be afraid of happiness and being alone is not a happy station. But people shouldn't be thinking that there are men and women out there ready to break down their doors, they have to get out there and look for it."
Mr Daly said that "a large percentage of people who travel to Lisdoon are there for a bit of blagardin and a reasonable percentage are very seriously looking for a life partner while there are a lot who just come out of curiosity.
"It is Europe's biggest singles festival after all."
Mr Daly said that the large number of young women from Eastern Europe who now attended the festival has changed the dynamic of the event.
"They would be looking for the more mature man and it gives an older Irish man a second chance for happiness and an opportunity to have a family."
