speed dating in Borris

patrickc

for all ye singletons out there

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0507/1224246059303.html

A BRITISH dating agency specialising in “connecting country-minded people” has chosen a Co Carlow village for its first speed-dating event in Ireland this weekend.
“Muddy Matches”, an organisation based in Bedfordshire, has arranged the event to coincide with an annual “Tractor Nuts” festival in Borris.
The agency, founded in 2007, has 24,000 members and provides internet dating and “social networking” services to enable like-minded people who enjoy country life and “a muddy-boots lifestyle” to meet.
Co-founder Lucy Reeves said the agency has already attracted 2,000 Irish members from Northern Ireland and the Republic and is planning to expand operations here.
Ms Reeves, who grew up on a farm, established the business with her sister Emma after deciding that “there is no longer any stigma attached to online dating”.
She said the service attracts “a wide range of people but is particularly popular with unattached people in their 40s”. Clients can range from “farmers living in the middle of nowhere to people in Dublin who aspire to live in the country”. The agency runs regular events throughout Britain and hosts an annual ‘Mud Lovers Ball’.
She said they had chosen to arrange the speed-dating event in Borris after hearing that an analysis of the 2006 Census revealed that the village, in the foothills of the Blackstairs Mountains, is “one of the top ten bachelor hot-spots in Ireland”.
The weekend festival begins on Saturday and will include a vintage tractor event and displays of tractor pulling (teams of five men haul a tractor by a rope) and tractor splitting (teams dismantle and then reassemble a tractor “against the clock”).
Festival spokesman Denis Savage said other attractions would include “barrel pushing, live music and pig roasting” and that the festival would “raise funds for the Irish Kidney Association and the Irish Cancer Society”.
Speaking by telephone from her office in the English shire village of Podington, Ms Reeves said that while women account for a slight majority among members in Britain, the membership in Ireland is evenly split between the sexes.
‘Muddy Matches’ has “already led to a number of weddings, engagements and some babies”. The next event tentatively planned for Ireland is a day-long clay pigeon shoot and she hopes “to run events in Ireland regularly”.
Members are “carefully vetted” and must be aged “at least 18 while the oldest member is currently 78”.
The agency stresses that their networking services are not exclusively designed for romance but for all those “interested in meeting other like-minded people’’.

HugoIrl

Sorry I just read the last bit age ranges from 18 - 78!!!!!!!!!!

SV

Sounds fun..

Millie

I saw an event that was organised by this group on TV a few weeks back & everyone who was there seemed to have enjoyed the day.

Queen-Mise

did anyone go to this or hear any reports back.