700 couples have now met their match in Knock

Knock's Marriage Introduction Bureau notched up another 24 weddings in 1997, bringing the total successes from three decades of matchmaking to 700.

The bureau is now responsible for "a wedding a fortnight," according to its founder and director, Father Michael Keane. And while the figures since 1968 suggest one marriage for every 20 introductions, this year's annual report shows the strike rate has now improved to one in 16. "The first years were slow," he explains.

He could say the same of some of his customers, but the statistics show that persistence does pay. While 370 men and 328 women married the first person introduced to them by the bureau, many others have played the field. In the case of 39 men and 57 women, it took five or more introductions to get them hitched, while two particularly hard-to-get women gave in only at the 10th attempt.

A total of 320 people paid the bureau's £50 application fee last year, and Father Keane says the demand for the service is as great as ever. "It's become even more relevant since the ballrooms of romance closed, because there really is nowhere now for people to meet."

The 30-year figures suggest Galway has Ireland's highest concentration of lonely hearts, or at least had before the bureau went to work. No fewer than 80 women and 63 men from the county have married with its help, second only to Dublin (150 women and 81 men), and ahead of Cork (55 and 38).

In its native Mayo, the bureau has done the business for 23 women and 39 men. On the other hand, Longford has emerged as one of the least successful counties, with a scoring rate of only eight women and 12 men.

The biggest single category of customer continues to be the male farmer. A breakdown of the 235 who have found wives through the service shows they were most likely to marry nurses (49), clerks and housekeepers (34 each), secretaries (27) and teachers (22). But the key category of women described simply as "own farms" resulted in eight strategic alliances for farmers, while the complexities of EU-subsidised agriculture may have been a factor for the two who married accountants.

Businessmen, predictably, appear prone to marrying secretaries, who account for 21 of the bureau's 70 marriages under this heading; while, among the smaller categories, five postmen have been successfully delivered into the arms of two factory workers, a housekeeper, a secretary and a clerk.

Under the heading of "marital status," there are still only two sorts of people on the bureau's books, single and widowed. Father Keane explains the service is precluded from dealing with divorcees, but where necessary refers them to the secular dating agencies.