The year of finding your other half

THERE are two times in the year when single people get serious about trying to find a partner.

Now, when they’re full of New Year gusto, and in August, when maybe they’ve been to a wedding alone or are back from their summer holiday jaunt. In January, according to the Irish dating website, maybefriends.com, there is usually a 30% spike in activity.

There are, based on the latest available census figures, about 707,000 single people between the ages of 25 and 54 in Ireland. A lot of them are lonesome. “People are awful lonely,” admits Claire Daly, daughter of the famous Lisdoonvarna matchmaker Willie Daly, a farmer who has spent 40 years hooking up idle lovers. Claire Daly is the fourth generation of her family to enter into the dating game, having launched a dating website to underpin her business two years ago. Business is so brisk that she’s roped her two sisters into her enterprise.

“The whole thing I get is that people are so lonely,” she says. “It’s not just older people. They’re living on their own. They come home from work. Other friends have settled at a certain age. They’re stuck watching the TV, watching the fire. They get into a rut. These people are lovely. These people have great jobs. They’ve so much going for them. I’ve girls — I’m not joking you — some of them are like models. They’re stunning. I get a shock when I open my forms. I think there’s a social link missing. People just can’t meet.”

In December, Newstalk hosted a singles night for 300 daters. Radio presenter Tom Dunne was struck by how “good-looking, attractive and normal” the guests were. They all had a different story to tell about their predicament.

“One girl was saying to me that when she was in her twenties, all her friends met one guy, stuck with him and married, but that she had dated lots of people, which, at the time, she liked doing; then suddenly, she said, ‘I didn’t have anyone.’ She felt like, ‘God, maybe I should have stuck with one a bit earlier.’

“One man was saying, ‘What am I doing here? This is not in my plans for me. I married my teenage sweetheart. We’ve four kids. Then she just announced she’s leaving me.’ That was two years ago; they’re divorced now.

“One girl was saying, ‘There’s nobody in this room for me!’ How do you know? I asked. ‘I just know instantly,’ she replied. It was eight years since she’d been in a relationship. She was a young, good-looking woman. It has to be something in her.”

More and more of these lonely hearts are turning to dating agencies, particularly online, a practice that has mushroomed over the last decade. Earlier this month, UK TV presenter Sarah Beeny brought her successful My Single Friend concept for online dating to Ireland.

Parship, Europe’s largest online matchmaking agency, reckons Ireland is four years behind Britain when it comes to dating agencies. They’re certainly sophisticated when it comes to targeting across the water. There are some 1,200 dating websites, a lot of whom tailor their services. For example, you could look for People in Uniform or Date a Millionaire.

You might be hard pressed to find many of the latter in Ireland, although Irish men aren’t tight when it comes to impressing their dates. They are, according to a European singles survey published last August, likely to spend €106 on average on a date, some €46 more than their British counterparts and double that of continental blokes.

Finding a partner can be a costly pastime. Apart from the outlay on grooming products and gourmet meals, travel and theatre tickets, the hook-up can also cost. Two’s Company, a traditional dating agency, provides its clients with a minimum of six introductions over a 12-month period at a fee of €500. Claire Daly and her sisters in the West of Ireland charge clients €150 for three introductions.

The Knock Marriage Bureau also charges €150, but for a guarantee of six introductions. The Irish Singles Directory, which runs out of a base in Leitrim, charges its members €97 for a year on its books. One of its services is the Singles Lounge, where, in a variation of the time-honoured classified ad, members can phone an answering machine to leave a voice message advertising their wares.

Most dating websites are free to register and to put up a profile, but fees kick in if you want to progress things, like sending a message to someone you fancy. With maybefriends.com, for instance, members can pay €75 extra every six months to get additional benefits like entry to an online chat room or to get information on their organised events, which are mostly member-driven excursions like country walks or pub sessions.

The company has been in business for a decade and registers, McGrath calculates, about two weddings a month from its client base. Two’s Company, which is two years in the game, has over 200 couples in long-term relationships.

Interestingly, Two’s Company stopped taking on bored female clients after the first few months of trading. At the moment, says Bill Phelan, a company partner, 63% of its clients are male, which bucks the industry norm, female-male ratio of 60-40. “You always have more women. They’re more proactive,” says Geraldine McGrory, the spokesperson for Parship. In North Clare, the Lisdoon matchmakers, reflecting a rural trend, are crying out for “more career men and more country women”.

A well-publicised case in Donegal, which came to the courts last March, heard of a 35-year-old woman who unsuccessfully sought compensation from a dating agency, Happy Matchmaker, for allegedly being “groped, assaulted and battered” by her dates. Daly says she hasn’t had any security issues with clients in her time. “If anything,” she claims, “men are shy.”

The Knock Marriage Bureau, which has clocked up over 890 “known weddings”, has been operating since 1968. Its founder, Fr Michael Keane, passed away last year. Its methodology hasn’t altered much since its inception. Dates are organised by exchanging a few letters after the bureau has done some qualifying.

“It’s very difficult work — handling files,” says Canon Joseph Cooney. “I’ll tell you it’s like playing chess. You have five qualities of some person and you’re trying to match up that with five similar qualities of another person. It can be time-consuming and energy-consuming. You’re playing with lives. You have to take it very, very seriously.”