Page 37 of Experiments in Offline Dating

Maya: That makes sense. I guess actually liking your job is an important part of the process. Here’s a big question—did you matchmake your children?

Jackie: Oh, no. I tried a few times, but I learned pretty quickly that this was not appreciated.

Maya: What happened?

Jackie: Well, let’s just say if someone hasn’t asked you for help, interfering with their love life might be seen as meddling. Especially if it doesn’t work out.

Maya: Uh-oh.

Jackie: One of my boys will hardly speak to me now, and my daughter Eilish gave me the silent treatment for a full year once.

Maya: That sounds like playing with fire.

Jackie: It can be. Sometimes you’re just too close to it to see clearly. But I’ve learned the error of my ways. Totally reformed, I am!

Maya: So, is there anything you don’t like about your job?

Jackie: Well. I suppose it is hard to not feel responsible for the things I can’t control. Will she go to the church or will she run? Will he find another bed to warm when she’s busy looking after the kids? Will they fight too much? Will he drink too much? Will the babies come easy or won’t they? I get a lot of sad letters too. Tearstained. Lots of men at the pub in their cups, begging me to tell them how to fix it. Life is a long bumpy road, and sometimes your horse throws a shoe. I have to remind myself that all I can do is put them in the wagon and slap the horse’s bum, and whatever happens next is out of my hands.

Maya: Do you keep those letters too? The sad ones?

Jackie: I used to. But now I say a little prayer and then I throw them in the fire. And I watch the flames burn up all that pain and worry and carry it up the chimney. And I ask the Lord to do the same. That’s why sometimes even on a hot summer’s day, I’ll have a fire going and the doors open.

Maya: You don’t have to answer this, but I’d like to know. Did you find love, Jackie?

Jackie: Oh, I did, right enough. A grand love. A love for the ages.

Maya: Were you matchmade? By your father or maybe your grandfather?

Jackie: No, no. I met her at a music festival in Cork back in 1978. They’d invited me up to set up a booth for matchmaking, and I was happy to go join in on the craic. She was one of the dancers there, and I knew right away, from that very first conversation in line for a cider, with the fiddles playing in the background.

Maya: That sounds magical!

Jackie: Love often is. I asked her to marry me that day.

Maya: You didn’t! The first day you met her?

Jackie: I did. I asked her to marry me that day, on our very first date, and I asked her again on every date after that. Forty-six times, to be exact. Until she said yes.

Maya: Did she say no forty-five times?

Jackie: She never once said no. Even on that first day. She said the same thing every time. “We’ll see, Jackie Kelly. We’ll see soon enough.” And she said it with this smile, Maya. Oh, that smile. I was a goner!

Maya: Amazing.

Jackie: Twelve years she’s been gone now, but I still see that smile when I wake up every morning, and think of it every night before I go to sleep.

Maya: Oh, Jackie. That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

Jackie: Sometimes love comes hard, and sometimes it comes easy. And that’s the way it was for me. I was one of the lucky ones.

Maya: Tell me about the times when love came hard. Were there couples that took a lot of extra work? Did you have to push them into falling in love?

Jackie: Oh, yes. I’ve been doing this for fifty years, give or take. Some people want love but do all the wrong things, and I need to, you know, help things along a little bit. I’ve gotten up to some mad shenanigans.

Maya: Tell us immediately!

Jackie: Well, let’s see. There was the time when I trapped two people in a sea cave as the tide came in. The time I had to dress up as the back end of a donkey at the Christmas pageant so that the front end of the donkey could get a chance to ask the Virgin Mary to the pub for a pint. And . . . let’s see. There’s the one time I spent three hundred and sixty-two Irish pounds to book out every room in an inn so that two enemies would have no choice but to share a room.