MEET THE MATCHMAKERS
If you’re single and looking for love this Valentine’s Day, dating experts Rena Maycock and Fergal Harrington are here to help!
YOU’D never have gone for me as I’m a short-arse,’ smiles Fergal Harrington across the room at his wife Rena, who grins and nods in enthusiastic agreement. ‘True,’ agrees Rena, ‘I used to only go out with guys who were above my eye level – I wouldn’t look at guys who weren’t about six foot two...’
Fergal, meanwhile – who we should mention at five foot nine, is taller than the average Irish male – can’t help throwing a potshot in his wife’s direction. ‘Yeah and I’d have probably thought you were too old for me...’
Feargal and Rena are Ireland’s most famous matchmaking couple, but according to the lovebirds, had they been using Tinder or dating apps back when they were single, their paths may have never crossed, as they wouldn’t have given one another a second glance. The self-styled Love Doctors were matched the old-fashioned way by Feargal’s brother, back in 2010. The union sent them off on a path glittering with a thousand happy-ever-afters.
Feargal explains: ‘My brother asked Rena to play some of his music on her radio station and she did and he thanked her and brought her for a drink and invited me along. We went to The Palace in Temple Bar.’
But it was the second date that sealed the deal and displayed Feargal’s intuitive romantic credentials. ‘Afterwards, I invited Rena and her two mates to Michael Buble in the Aviva.’ That was eight years ago.
A year later, as Rena’s work running a radio station began to look precarious and Feargal struggled to keep his property business going, they struck on the idea of setting up a traditional introduction agency to help Ireland’s millions of singletons find love. Intro Matchmaking Agency proved to be a goldmine.
A year after they began making their first matches, the couple had both left their jobs and taken offices on Dawson Street. Since then, they’ve taken on beautiful new Georgian offices on Grafton Street, have hired six staff members, and are open seven days a week, matching thousands of clients from across the 32 counties.
These days Feargal and Rena boast high-profile rugby players, actors, politicians, models, authors, journalists and broadcasters – those who may not want to be seen on public dating apps. However, they claim to be not at all elitist.
‘We’re the exact opposite of elitist, we’re totally inclusive,’ insists Fergal. ‘Everyone pays the same and gets the same service. We wouldn’t ask the question about money, we’re not a cheap, tacky agency. Whether you’re a nuclear physicist or cleaning the streets, you’re looking for the same thing – a life partner.
‘We want the core values to be there and future goals and important things like whether you’re nice to animals. We don’t discriminate. The people on our books are happy in their lives and want someone to enhance it, not to fix it.’
Despite the fact that Ireland’s dating culture has evolved so much in recent years and it’s easier than it has ever been to meet new people via apps and websites, hundreds of thousands of single adults in Ireland remain unattached.
It may come as a surprise that the increasing popularity of dating websites and apps such as Tinder are in fact serving to bump up Intro’s numbers, as singletons get fed up of the neverending, conveyor line of suitors who turn out not to be suitable at all.
Rena explains: ‘There’s no guarantees with us but there’s a reason we work better and have a lot more success as you’re put into a pool with people whose intentions are also honourable and who are putting the same effort into it.
‘No one is married, or is here for an affair, and we would be a very expensive one-night stand. They’re all after a serious relationship and will spend the money to get it.’ ➤
When singletons sign up with Intro, they sit down with Feargal, Rena or one of their matchmakers for around 45 minutes, baring their souls in a bid to create an in-depth profile that will help weed out their ideal mates.
For €795, they are set up on five dates. No phone numbers are handed out and there’s no contact before the couple meets on date night, which is a table in a restaurant for lunch or dinner, arranged by the Intro team. If they decide to go on another date, they can freeze their subscription for three months, and if that romance fizzles out, they can move on to the next one. The morning after their dates, the matchmakers are on the phone, trying to glean how the match worked out, helping them to finetune their next choice.
So just why are there so many singletons in Ireland, especially with the array of dating options now at their fingertips? Having spoken to thousands of unattached people of both sexes since opening their agency, and commissioned surveys into Irish dating habits, Rena and Feargal think they have it sussed.
‘There’s still a stigma in Ireland,’ says Rena. ‘The fear of rejection, the fear of putting yourself out there, looking for something, is still there. We’ve done a lot of research on shame. Look at New York and London, they’re all online dating, on a number of different sites. It’s totally normal to be going on a few dates a week. They wonder why we’re not.’
While they’re busy all year round, come January, Feargal and Rena’s phones are hopping.
‘January and February are insane,’ says Rena. ‘We arrived back after Christmas to hundreds of emails and 60 voicemails.’
Feargal muses: ‘For many singletons, it’s the loneliest time, when their siblings are there with their kids running around, they decide they want to meet someone.’
But many of these callers don’t follow through. Acccording to Rena, procrastination is a major obstacle along the path to true love.
‘People put it on long finger and procrastinate and sit around waiting for Mr Right. A lot of people ring every year, hmming and hawing and mightn’t sign up for five years when they could have been in a relationship all that time.’
Research carried out by Intro showed more than 77% of singletons over the age of 25 are doing nothing about meeting someone while 66% of those who want to aren’t using any dating channels, hoping they’ll bump into Mr or Mrs Right in the supermarket or down the pub.
So what else is holding us back? Both Feargal and Rena agree managing expectations is a huge part of their jobs. In Ireland, according to their research, it seems the fairer sex have it particularly tough. They’re brainier than the men, for a start, there just aren’t enough clever fellas to go round. Women stay longer in education than men and for every professional woman, there’s just 0.6 of a professional man.
A recent Trinity College study found bettereducated women find it harder to meet partners and according to Rena, this is because many – who come to her at least – insist on only dating their academic match, when there just aren’t enough of them out there.
There are 53,000 more women than men in Ireland and in every age group over 25 there are more women than men. This is the result of more girls being born here, as well as higher emigration and mortality rates among men.
Rena says: ‘We found the majority of women will insist upon meeting men that have the same educational standard as them but there are simply not enough educated men to go around. We remind people that a person’s qualifications are not a measure on how intelligent, interesting or successful they are. Alan Sugar left education aged 16 and he’s done ok.’
Feargal adds: ‘A lot of women may lose out on amazing men as she could have a Masters from Trinity and he doesn’t so she overlooks him. There are academic snobs out there and that can stand in the way of meeting Mr Right.’
Then there’s the age old age divide. ‘Most women want men their own age and most men want younger women – these are hard truths,’ reveals Feargal. ‘The hard part is trying to get everyone to meet somewhere in the middle.’
Rena and Feargal say women in the older dating category find it particularly tough as, not only is there is a lack of available men in their age group, but their research shows most men aged 40 and over say they want younger woman.
Feargal says: ‘What happens is we get Pat who is in his 60s and wants to meet a girl of 35 as he’d like to have a family. He has road frontage and still thinks that’s enough to woo a woman and he’d imagine at her age, Mary would have “mattress money”. But Pat has lived with mammy most of his life and she ruined him. Nobody could do for him what mammy did.
‘One fella wanted a young wife for an heir and I suggested he’d be happier meeting someone his own age to which he said, “Ronnie Wood did it at 69, why can’t I?” I was like: “Em, well he’s a Rolling Stone.’
Feargal continues: ‘Mary rings up and is 55 but is in great shape and does yoga and pilates and feels 45 so she wants a much younger man, we tell her we probably won’t be able to get you that.’
The couple admit some of their research findings shocked even them and made for depressing reading.
Respondents told how they feel ‘pessimistic’ about their chances of meeting ‘the one’ – and shockingly, 52% of singletons aged over 25 feel they will never meet their life partner. It’s little wonder they don’t feel any motivation to get on
‘PEOPLE ARE GETTING SO JADED OF SWIPING LEFT AND RIGHT’
the dating scene. Fergal believes this pessimism is a result of the fast food style of dating. It also makes for shorter relationships as daters return to the ‘relationship shop’ at the first sign the glow of the honeymoon period is dimming.
‘People are getting so jaded of the swiping left and right and they get disillusioned,’ he says. ‘Also, they don’t give people a chance. A guy out for coffee with Jen and thinking maybe Susan who I’m messaging is better. He’s peering around the corner for his next date. The grass is always greener so online dating allows relationships to be a lot shorter. This conveyor belt of dates means people don’t invest anything in it.
‘All relationships hit a bump in the road. When the quibbles start, normal people work through the fights and become a stronger couple but because it’s so easy to meet people now, a bump happens and guys think this is too much hard work. They can go back to the “relationship shop” for another honeymoon period.’
Rena says Intro’s success rate of one in four going on to have a long-term relationship or marriage is simple – they weed out timewasters. ‘When people call us, they’ve tried other avenues and been going out to pubs every weekend and shelling out all this money or going on all these dates and meeting people who don’t want the same thing and they’re sick of it.
‘This way they know they’ll meet five people and know a huge amount about them before accepting a date. The 80% is there, the other 20% is chemistry.’
If you meet in a bar you also can’t ask many vital qualifying questions.
Fergal agrees: ‘A lot of guys run away after three weeks if you ask them if they want kids. We had a woman aged 39 who’d had a ten-year relationship with a guy, he doesn’t want kids now, so he’s gone. He’s going around half asleep like a lot of guys.
‘They don’t make plans or think about the big questions and then there’s a bombshell dropped. When this woman comes to Intro, she knows we’ve cut out the commitment-phobes. It’s not like going to a nightclub or a nonsense bar and ending up with someone who is married or a lunatic. We only take on those who know what they want.’