It will be a "bumper year" for weddings among those attending the annual Lisdoonvarna match-making festival opening this weekend, according to organiser Willie Daly.
For the second year running, there will be a gay and lesbian match-making festival, in the first weekend in October. This marks a switch from the opening weekend to October 3rd-6th.
Mr Daly said last year’s inaugural LGBT event – “The Outing” – was a “great success”.
But he said: “My services weren’t asked for and I was quietly relieved in a way because I have never made any matches for gay people before.”
As for the main festival, Mr Daly said conditions were right for a bumper year for weddings for those looking for love “after a bumper harvest year for farmers”.
“It has been a very good summer in the fields with the harvesting and the farmers can prepare for the festival in comfort. A good harvest year always makes for a festival that produces quite a few weddings.”
The north Clare farmer, who has been match-making “for near on 50 years”, said women are due to come in good numbers from overseas to meet Irish farmers.
Shook-looking book
“There is quite an interest in the Irish male. He is a very pure kind of person – maybe it is living on an island – but that is a scarce enough commodity in the world right now.
“The Irish male also has a nice philosophy on life and that makes the Irish male very attractive to women from across the world,” he claimed.
Mr Daly will spend the next month in the spa town making fresh entries into his fabled match-making book.
“The book is a little bit shook-looking at the moment, but it is a very lucky book and if you grasp it with both hands, there is a good chance that you could be married in six months. The book is an inspiration for people.”
