Lonely hearts long for trip to matchmaking weekend

When the organisers of the Marquee in Drumlish festival in Co Longford decided to hold a matchmaking weekend, they could not have imagined the response.

Tonight, 165 women will be interviewed at the Ierne Ballroom in Parnell Place in Dublin to take part in a little matchmaking exercise dreamed up by the festival organisers.

The village has more bachelors per head of population than anywhere else in Ireland and so a plan was hatched to find 10 single men from Drumlish and match them up with 10 single women from Stillorgan in Dublin, which has more single women than any place in Ireland.

The organisers decided to spread their remit nationwide and were astonished at the response.

When the marquee festival was put on the iloveyou.ie website last week, 1,140 women registered their details and the organisers have spent the last week trying to whittle down the numbers for interview.

"It's completely crazy," said Drumlish publican Pádraig Brady, the man behind the festival. "We knew there were a lot of single women out there, but not this many."

The women may be attracted by the pampering they will get next weekend as much as they might be to the prospect of meeting a soulmate.

They will be flown by helicopter from Dublin to Drumlish where a champagne and strawberry reception awaits.

They will be put in local guesthouses and will have hairdressers and beauty therapists laid on along with candlelight dinners and a leisurely cruise down the Shannon.

They, along with the 10 bachelors, will be interviewed on stage at the Marquee in Drumlish on Friday and Saturday night and a king and queen of the festival will be chosen on Sunday evening. Romance, though, will be the ultimate goal.

"We hope that one or two couples will get together during the festival. That's usually what happens, or so I'm told," said Pádraig. "It'll be like a cross between Blind Date and the Rose of Tralee."

The festival's original intention was to revive the Marquee in Drumlish which once hosted the cream of country and Irish music with the showbands of the 1960s and 1970s, but was defunct for 28 years.

The marquee is immortalised in the song of the same name by local musician Declan Nerney. "When I was just a little boy my one and only wish was to get to see the showbands play the Marquee in Drumlish."

For a small village of just 750 people, Drumlish has produced two of the most successful country and Irish artists of recent years, Mick Flavin and Declan Nerney, but also conventional rock and roll band The Aftermath, the only independent act to have had two top 20 singles in the Irish charts. Popular cover band Busy Fingers and up and coming Longford band San Diego make up an impressive local line-up all of whom will be playing the festival.

The new marquee will be 8,000sq ft (743sq m) and is double the size of what had been originally planned.

"We could have sold 3,000 tickets at €25 each. They were snapped up immediately," Pádraig said.