Thousands of singletons will jet off to the sun in search of love.

Ireland's biggest singles festival is ditching its hometown of Clare and relocating to Spain for this year's event. The annual Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival, which attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world, was cancelled for the second year running due to the pandemic. Now, organisers have decided to take the event to Alicante instead. Organiser Diarmuid Moore says the relocated event has been met with "huge interest" from people. “It's all about a bit of craic, to bring a bit of Irish craic back because we have had no Paddy's Day parade here for the last two years," he told Newstalk. Despite the change in location, there is plenty of the usual music and dancing planned, and the festival's famous matchmaker, Willie Daly, will be in attendance. https://www.instagram.com/p/B2aIt6IBU0l/ "Willie the matchmaker himself will be visiting all the pubs on the different days," said Diarmuid. "He has a sharp eye for the matchmaking as everybody knows. He'll be eyeing up singletons and hoping to put them together, which I think he will. There's plenty of them around at the moment. Oh, I've no doubt about it he'll certainly make a match or two!" The event kicks off next week in the small coastal town of Cabo Roig in Alicante, from 19-26 October.