Oh my word all these men...

My word I've had an eventful few days. I got to hang out with Ireland's last matchmaker Willie Daly. He is such a character and is full of amazing stories. He invited me to his home and I got to meet his abundance of horses. I asked him how many he had and he said "a man never counts his money, his wives or his horses" We then went to a local horse fair in Ennistynon. The streets were just full of horses mingling inbetween the cars and pedestrians. Cages on the pavements housing chickens, puppies or even very tiny ponies. It was like going back in time, some traditions are timeless here in Ireland.

In the evening we sat in the kitchen for an impromptu singing session from Willie, even his songs are full of stories. Willie then took me to a local Ceili dance where I drank Guinness and even had a dance myself. Quite difficult to do, especially as I was wearing flip flops, but Willie just guided me through.

Today I've had a tour of Lisdoonvarna by Pat. The history here is incredible, it's an old spa town that people travelled to hundreds of years ago for the healing powers of the water. I did drink some, bad eggs comes to mind.  This is where the matchmaking started many years ago with farmers travelling to marry off their daughters. Now there is a huge festival every September and people travel here from all over the world to find love. Willie has been matching people together with apparently a rather good success record. He tells me there are 29 and a half men to one woman. So long as I don't land the half!

So there's hope for me. I got to touch the luck book and have since received five phone calls from gentlemen interested in meeting me! Ok so I'm sure Willie gave them my number and bigged me up slightly but things are certainly looking up for me...

Lisdoonvarna...

Meeting Willie Daly...

Testing the water...