Find Me a Find, Catch Me a Catch

Fed up with speed dating, Internet dating, and all the other newly-contrived ways of meeting a mate? Head to Europe's biggest annual singles event -- the Ireland Matchmaking Festival.

This isn't any point-and-click matching; this is proper old-style matchmaking, done by Willie Daly, a fourth-generation matchmaker -- the country's last remaining practitioner of the art.

"Willie has drawn on his extensive files, notebooks and ledgers, on his remarkable memory, and applied his highly attuned antennae to offer hope to the thousands who ply him with their details," says the Matchmaking Festival's Web site. (For those skeptical of one man's ability to pair up so many, there's also the tried-and-true pub dances and drinking until dawn.)

The 150-year-old festival – which this year has drawn some 40,000 romantic hopefuls (plus dozens of happy couples celebrating their anniversaries) -- takes place in the southwest Ireland spa town of Lisdoonvarna, which calls itself the country's Cupid capital. Once upon a time, there was a matchmaker in every Irish town, but now 65-year-old Daly is the only one left.

September is the traditional peak month for matchmaking. It was then, when the harvest was safely in, that Irish bachelor farmers took a break from their work and hunted for wives. Matchmakers would take a cut of the women's dowries when he made a successful match.

The hottest commodity at this year's festival: Farmers, apparently because the love of the land is recession-proof.

“The farmers are back in vogue this year. The women place great value on the farming community and the likes of the building contractors would not be as popular as other years," Daly told the Irish Times."A builder could build you 100 houses, but at the moment, who would want them? But you can’t make an acre, there is great security in the land. At times like this, it stands out." (To watch a video of Daly, click here.)

And with a ratio of nine men to every woman at the festival, luck may well be a lady in Lisdoonvarna this month.

Photo courtesy Chud Tsankov via Flickr.