An Irishman's Diary

Dan Paddy Andy O'Sullivan, from the Stacks Mountains in Kerry, was a legendary matchmaker whose memory has been kept alive in the writings of John B. Keane. Recently, a memorial to him in Lyreacrompane was unveiled by the broadcaster Micheal O Muircheartaigh.

John B., who attended the ceremony, got to know Dan Paddy Andy when he spent his childhood summers with relations in the Stacks Mountains. The two were close friends until Dan Paddy Andy's death in the early 1960s. John B. chronicled his life and times in his book Man of the Triple Name, which was published by Brandon Press in 1984.

Dan Paddy Andy, according to John B., was responsible for 400 marriages in 25 years of matchmaking. Only one was a failure, and John B. explains the reason with his usual sensitivity.

"The failure was due to the fact that the female partner of this unfortunate liaison was incapable of any sort of sexual confederacy because of excessive religious commitment and belief in the variety of taboos which would seem to suggest that even marital sex was a shameful business. She was, consequently, unwilling or unable to play her part in that area of marital obligations so carnally and unpoetically referred to as the consummation."

Stacks Mountains

The Stacks Mountains of John B.'s childhood is described in his book Self Portrait. The modest incomes of the area's inhabitants came from turf, which was "black and hard and had a great names in faraway places like Listowel, Castleisland and Tralee."

He adds: "These were lively and vital people, composed of infinite merriment and a little sadness. They lived according to their means, and if you didn't like them you could leave them. When they went into town, they drank and were misunderstood. Their liveliness and strength were misinterpreted. Rows took place and the age-old hatred of country for town was resurrected."

There was a Scotsman who drove a Ford car. "He buzzed around the countryside in search of fish. He had a moustache, was completely bald, and the outstanding thing I remember about him was that he never gave anybody a drive in his car. It was suggested by some that he was a spy, and had bombs in the car, but what he was spying on, or intended to blow up, was a mystery." It was in the Stacks Mountains that John B. discovered the Holy Ghost was born in Lyreacrompane. "Some people claim 'twas Glin," an old man told him, pointing at a mountain, "and more says 'tis Clonakilty, but 'tis up there He was born."

And it was in the Stacks Mountains that John B. learned the ballad, The Road to Athea, a verse of which he often quotes.

We arrived in Athea at a quarter to one

And up to the clergy we quickly did run;

'Twas there we were married without much delay;

And we broke a bed spring that night in Athea.

Clerical displeasure

The marriage was more than likely the work of Dan Paddy Andy. Perhaps the couple met in his dance hall in Renagown, which he insisted in opening during Lent in the 1940s despite the Catholic Church ban. The clerical displeasure was intense and he was denounced from the altar. "There is a wild animal after descending from the mountains and it is the man of the triple name, Dan Paddy Andy," a priest declared. There was a midnight visit to his house from two priests - although it was later claimed that they were imposters - in the summer of 1943. They ordered him to his knees and sought a sworn undertaking that he would never again open his dance hall during Lent. Dan Paddy Andy, a physically strong man, knocked their heads together and sent them running.

Alan Whicker

He was not to be beaten. He struggled on and in time diversified into holding supper dances, the food on offer being tea and bread and jam. In later years, he attracted considerable media attention, and the intrepid television reporter Alan Whicker was among those who came to see him. According to John B., the matchmaker supreme observed that Whicker was a bachelor and advised him to visit the holiday resort of Ballybunion if he wanted to meet a virgin.

Dan Paddy Andy's eyesight failed and he was granted the blind pension. Despite this, he found himself in a Tralee cinema on one occasion viewing the afternoon offering. The story is told that he was having a marvellous time until he discovered that sitting next to him was the pensions officer.

A quick thinker, Dan Paddy Andy nudged him and asked: "Hey, is this the bus to Castleisland ?"

The medical phenomenon which enabled a blind man to view a film was known only to Dan Paddy Andy and John B. Dan Paddy Andy took the secret to the grave with him, and John B., despite much probing by doctors over the years, is not saying.