Every September, more than 60,000 singles pour into tiny Lisdoonvarna, Ireland, where 83-year-old matchmaker Willie Daly still pairs couples the old-fashioned way, and marriages keep following.
In the small County Clare town, a monthlong festival of music, dancing, speed dating, and traditional matchmaking has drawn hopeful romantics since 1857. At the center sits Willie Daly, a local legend whose family has been pairing couples for three generations.
CBS News attended the festivities at the pub in September and spoke with Daly and attendees chasing something dating apps rarely deliver: a face-to-face shot at lasting love.
Daly meets prospective suitors, has them fill out a form on hobbies, personality, and the kind of partner they want, then relies on personal intuition to send pairs on a first date. He keeps the records in a tattered old book. Local lore holds that if two people place their hands on that book, they will be married within six months.
The 83-year-old lives on a donkey farm near Lisdoonvarna and is widely seen as among the last traditional Irish matchmakers keeping the craft alive. His grandfather helped start the festival. His father matched couples before him.
Daly told CBS News last month that the work still shows up in daily life.
"When I'm walking down the street, often I'd meet people... two or three couples said, 'You fixed us up 30 years ago, or 40 years ago,'"
He is plain about what the festival offers.
"We're lucky here. Now this is a wonderful festival, and it's a great provision of opportunity, the opportunity to get married is very consistent in it. Music and dancing all day long, you know, for 30 days."
Singles gather every year at The Matchmaker Bar, a local watering hole with Daly’s image on the front, to drink, dance, and try to meet a future spouse.
Mary Timby, an American from Colorado, first heard about the festival on the sitcom “Schitt’s Creek” during COVID. Huddled under a blanket on her couch, she Googled it and realized the event was real.
She came to the village last year, met her partner from nearby Ennis at The Matchmaking Bar, and posted online about finding love. The post drew more than 2 million views. She returned this year as an ambassador for the event.
Timby described the meeting in simple terms.
"My partner is from Ennis, here in County Clare, and we met at The Matchmaking Bar,"
"I loved the Irish accent, and he just, was funny. He made me laugh and we connected right away, so we exchanged information."
He found her on social media the next day. “And the rest is history,” she said.
Erica, who traveled from Colombia, put the appeal bluntly: the chance to meet people the right way, face-to-face.
"Those apps, I mean, I'm not saying that people are hiding anything, but right now, just having the contact, just to sit there and talk to people makes [dating] a whole different event."
A young woman at the pub listed what she wanted in a partner: “a bit of loyalty, a bit of values, but also a bit of craic”, the Irish sense of good fun and banter you can’t beat.
An Irishman with a sheep farm at home was just as direct. He wanted someone agricultural. “We're farming at home, we have a sheep farm at home. That's what I'm looking for at the moment.”
Nearly 170 years on, the festival still runs every September on a basic idea: put people in the same room, give them music and dancing for a full month, and let a matchmaker who knows the old craft do the rest. In an age of swipes and profiles, Lisdoonvarna keeps proving that marriage-minded courtship does not have to be complicated to work.
Tradition that still produces weddings is not nostalgia. It is common sense with a long memory.
