Mary Timby has converted a spur-of-the-moment trip to Ireland into both a transatlantic relationship and a new travel venture. The 39-year-old from Colorado met 38-year-old Jason Mangan at The Matchmaker Bar during the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival last September, and the pair are now pursuing a cross-border romance while she brings other Americans to the town to try the same experience.
Timby says the festival visit began as a whim after she grew tired of dating apps. She filmed a short video on the plane telling her roughly 300 TikTok followers she was heading to a matchmaking festival, then woke at Shannon Airport to find her phone "blowing up" with messages from friends reading "Mary, your video is going viral." She rented a manual transmission car, struggled with the gear stick on the left, and stayed with an Irish family before heading into Lisdoonvarna.
The festival is a month-long, whole-town event in County Clare that still includes the presence of third-generation matchmaker Willie Daly. Its origins date back 170 years, when bachelor farmers and wealthier visitors flocked to the spa town for its mineral-rich waters, and the population during September swells from fewer than 1,000 year-round residents to as many as 80,000 visitors.
Timby says she was tired on her first night and almost missed the crowds that form later in the evening, after an accommodation host suggested she give the festival another try. She went back to the centre and found herself dancing and drinking pints at The Matchmaker Bar, where Mangan approached her. "I went over and introduced myself, and... conversation just flowed," he says. He was that night the designated driver, and recalls the encounter as brief, adding, "It was a very short interaction, to be honest with you." He later tracked Timby down on Instagram and invited her out; the two then went on a series of whirlwind dates.
Timby kept the budding romance private while she extended her stay and documented parts of her trip for followers. The couple rented a coastal cottage for the summer in Mangan's native County Clare, about 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Lisdoonvarna, and Timby even joined him on trips to local attractions including the Aran Islands. She also visited Willie Daly, who put her on the phone with several local men.
Now a viral figure and the founder of a business organising trips for people who want to visit Lisdoonvarna, Timby is positioning the festival not as a staged matchmaking line-up but as a social, cultural festival where encounters happen in pubs and on the streets. The next step for the couple is maintaining a transatlantic relationship while Timby develops her travel offering for others hoping to follow their path.
