Month: September 2011

IRELAND’S last living matchmaker, Willie Daly, says he is the man to find a fourth husband for lovelorn singer Sinead O’Connor.

O’Connor, who says she is looking for an older man, with “leather trouser-wearing gardaí” and farmers a special fancy, last month admitted that she would have joined an online dating service long ago but feared that the media would find out and scupper her chances of love.

With the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival just getting underway, Willie Daly believes that he would have no problem finding a match for O’Connor.

“Over the years, quite a lot of celebrities have come and attended the festival. They would be surprised themselves about how much they would be attracted by a lot of the people attending the festival. The men and women who come to the festival do get on very well together and maybe people can be reluctant to go up to someone who might be that bit famous,” said Willie.

“Sometimes people are put off by the bit of celebrity but Sinead O’Connor seems like a lovely person. She sounds like a very down-to-earth person and that is what the people who come to the festival are looking for. Lisdoonvarna is a real holdinghands kind of place. Maybe later on in the night they might have other thoughts but early in the evening it is a very romantic little town.”

This year’s festival got underway over the weekend and will continue for the next five weeks. According to Willie Daly, the people contacting the matchmaking service this years are more serious and more interested in marriage.

“The festival builds up bit by bit each week and we did get a lot of people already this weekend. We got a lot of serious people, people looking for marriage. In the past, anyone who would come early might have been looking for fun but it really seems like marriage is back in a bit way, much more than in the last four or five years anyway,” said Willie.

“I think that the need for security has crept back in. If people are on the dole or they have low incomes, I think that maybe they feel that two incomes are better than one. We did a lot of introductions last weekend we introduced a lot of people on Saturday and Sunday night.

“We’ve had a lot of women down this weekend. Maybe there will be more men as the week goes on. We are looking for a nice balance but at the moment we have a lot of women interested.”

A LIBYAN man who has lived in Ennis for almost 12 years has recalled how he made a dramatic escape from the fallen regime of Muammar Gadaffi.

Salaheddin Attia Elkurdi, a former aircraft engineer with the Libyan air force, recently returned to Ennis af ter spending a couple of weeks in his home town of Benghazi, providing logistical support for the rebel army there.

Despite the volatility and danger that still exists in parts of Libya, Salaheddin says, “I returned to my country to see what happened and to see my family. I found everything okay. People need to help the country.”

A former student at Clare VEC adult education centre, Salaheddin moved to Ennis after escaping the Gadaffi regime in the late 1990s.

After studying in the Soviet Union, Salaheddin became an officer in the Libyan air force. In 1981 he and members of the armed forces were accused of plotting a coup. He spent eight years in a Libyan prison before being among a group of hundred or so prisoners released in 1988 following pressure from the United Nations. He lived in Libya but remained under the watch of the regime. After being interrogated by Gadaffi forces in 1997, Salaheddin feared for his life. He fled to Turkey and eventfully made it to Ireland in 1999. He admits that he is lucky to be alive.

He was one of the first refugee students to study at the adult education centre in 2001. Salaheddin, who has since gained Irish citizenship, studied electronics with FÁS and was offered a place at Limerick Institute of Technology.

A married father of two, both of Salaheddin’s children attend primary school in Ennis. He says, “Ireland is my country. The hospitality from people in Ennis is very good.”

Salaheddin hopes to return to live with his family in Libya.

He adds, “The people are okay. The people are excited. When it started, the people fight for freedom and they die for freedom. They don’t think about themselves. They fight and many of our friends die. Our family also have some people that died, but it’s nothing for the freedom of Libya. I think if a million people die in this war, it’s nothing for Libya.”