'Love Is in the Air': World's Largest Matchmaking Festival

LISDOONVARNA, Ireland, Sept. 29, 2009— -- "Love is in the air in Lisdoonvarna." Or so the signs all over this small Irish town claim.

Every September, thousands flock here for what's billed as the world's largest matchmaking festival. If local folklore is to be believed, people have been finding their "match" here for more than 150 years.

The festival was created to help farmers who were so busy tending to their livestock that they didn't have time to find brides. Every September they would come down from their hillsides and the lucky ones would return with lifelong companions.

And Lisdoonvarna still attracts its fair share of similarly isolated Irishmen. "Well, it's lonely," said modern-day farmer, Colm Geaney, who came to Lisdoonvarna in search of a wife.

"I get up in the morning, you have to make your own dinners and suppers... repeated actions. It can be very, very lonely," he told BBC News.

The women, too, come in hope of a match. Several giggled that they were in Lisdoonvarna in search of a "rich farmer."

Cue Willy Daly, Lisdoonvarna's leprechaun of love or, as he refers to himself, Ireland's last remaining professional matchmaker.

He talks of women and love with the ease and charm of someone who has done more than just kiss the Blarney Stone.

"Women want to marry for love but a man is looking for a companion, looking for someone to share his life with," he explains.

For the month of September, business is booming for Daly, who sets up shop in his special booth in the Matchmaker Bar. Hundreds of hopefuls file in to see him over a weekend.

Matchmaking is in Daly's blood. He inherited the role from his father, who succeeded his own father. And he claims a pretty high success rate.