Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival

Lisdoonvarna was a spa town - it has sulphur and iron springs and a Victorian pump house - and farmers came in September, after the harvest and before the winter, to take the waters and, in a society where marriages were arranged, to find a wife. Matchmakers worked the crowd. The tradition thinned but did not die, and Willie Daly, whose father and grandfather did the same work, still operates with a leather-bound ledger of names that he says is over a century old. The festival now runs through most of September with dancing in the hotels and pubs from afternoon into the night, largely to country and western and older popular music rather than traditional. The crowd skews older, and a separate LGBT weekend, the Outing, has run within it since 2013. It is a genuine social event rather than a heritage display, and the drinking is substantial.

What you actually see

• The matchmaker - Willie Daly and the family ledger of names.
• The dancing - afternoon into night across the hotels and pubs, most of September.
• The spa origins - the sulphur springs and pump house the town grew around.
• The crowd - largely older, and there to socialise rather than sightsee.

When to go

September, with the busiest weekends in the middle and end of the month. Accommodation in the village books out - many visitors stay in Ennistymon or Doolin.

Honest expectations

A drinking and dancing festival, not a folk display; the music is mostly country rather than traditional. The village is small and fills completely. It skews older, which some visitors do not expect.

Nearby

Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher are west; the Burren surrounds the town.