Press cuttings. Here are just three of many... lots more to come!

THE SUNDAY TRIBUNE Sept 2 2007

 Where love's middle-aged dream comes true
 "IS this the way I go to get a wife?", asks the man outside the Matchmaker pub. He looks to be in his mid-60s and is sweating profusely as he  half-smiles, half-leers at me. "I hear there's great pickings tonight."He watches hungrily as an incongruously glamorous hen party walks past us.  "I think I'm going to go chance my arm here. Sure, no harm, no foul." He lumbers off after his unsuspecting prey.It's 1am on Saturday morning in  L isdoonvarna and the pub is the centre of activity for the first night of the annual matchmaker festival, which is taking over the tiny Clare town  from this weekend until 7 October. Amorous (read: on the pull) singles and happily-married couples converge on Lisdoonvarna's 15 bars.
 It's a strange place. Less than 10 minutes after I arrive here early on Friday afternoon, I get my first proposition from a man who stops me in the  middle of the main street."Would you like to come for a drink with me?" asks Carl, a bachelor in his late 50s from Limerick.When I suggest it's a  bit early in the afternoon to be hitting the bar, he persists undeterred. By the time I break away, five minutes later, I've inexplicably promised him  a dance at the hotel later. He's easily old enough to be my father.
 But in Lisdoonvarna, the normal rules of dating don't apply. It is not only assumed that anyone on their own is on the lookout for a partner, but it is  accepted. The atmosphere is like that of a teenage disco . . . simmering with anticipation and only slightly less hormone-fuelled.
 As there don't seem to be any official events on in the town yet, I use the time to take a trip out to the home of Willie Daly, the renowned local  matchmaker, who will be working his magic on hopeful singletons later on in the festival."It can be very difficult to meet people nowadays, " the  fourth-generation matchmaker explains."There's six or seven men for every one women out here so there's a lot of competition."Women's needs  have changed.They're more independent, they have higher expectations. But men still just want someone who's going to be like their mother . . .  good around the house and who'll show them lots of love."Back in the town, a crowd is beginning to gather at the Hydro Hotel. In the disco, the  one-man-band is playing 'Spanish Lace', as four or five middle-aged couples waltz sweetly across the big dance floor. There are small groups  of women sitting at side-tables, watching the dancers."There's a big difference between the younger crowd and the older crowd, " says Albert  Lawlor from Limerick. He should know . . . he's been coming to the festival for the past 36 years with his wife Cecily."The younger people want  sex almost immediately, but with the older crowd here, it's more about enjoying the dancing and meeting up with people you'll only see once a  year.""It can be a bit overpowering when you walk in, " says Mandy Cooke from Drumree. "You know the men are all looking you up and down.  But that's nothing, the whole thing is brilliant."

THE IRISH TIMES Sept 2 2006
Europe's biggest singles festival' under way

  Gordon Deegan
 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."

THE IRISH INDEPENDENT Aug 26 2005
 Love is in the air...in Co . Clare where hordes of single women are heading for Lisdoonvarna this week with only one thing on their mind: to find a perfect man. Katy Guest reports

 This small spa town in Co Clare is going to be transfigured today. The first coaches will roll in, the boats will dock and the planes will roar down  the runway at Shannon airport, with a thousand ears attuned to the sounds of their engines. Women will arrive by the coach, plane and  boat- load, and they will all be looking for love among the lucky menfolk of Lisdoonvarna.

The town's 150-year-old matchmaking festival is the subject of folklore. It inspired Christy Moore to sing about "hairy chests and milk-white thighs", and Brendan Shine to write a song called Catch Me If You Can. "I'm awful shifty," he said, "for a man of 50. I'm off for the craic, the women and the beer." Things have changed in the world of dating since landowners used to bring their daughters into town and haggle over dowries of cows. Speed-dating and chatrooms have replaced the annual ceilidh for maids looking for a partner. But Lisdoonvarna's matchmaker, Willie Daly, is still doing things the traditional way."I've been a matchmaker for close on 40 years now," he says. "My father and grandfather had done it before me, and I wasn't planning on doing it, but I could see there was a need for it in the area."The lot of men has not been an easy one of late. "Women in the last 20 years have become considerably more independent. Psychologically, their mind dwells in other places. The grass is always greener. Women travel to the cities and men stay at home. It is very difficult for them."This year, though, the bachelors can afford to be optimistic. "There has been quite a lot of interest in local men from women in eastern countries - Thailand, the Philippines and the like," says Daly. "These are sensitive women and very, very beautiful. They make marvellous wives."

                           
                          THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT Sunday May 18 2008
 
FG needs you, Lisdoonvarna