Romance at the races

By Susan Daly
Friday Jul 23 2010

THE thrill of the chase is not confined to the track during the Galway Races. While some racegoers admittedly come to watch hundreds of kilos of horseflesh sweating to the finishing line, for many the excitement is all in the heaving throngs of bodies in the course bars.
WB Yeats put it plainly in his poem 'At Galway Races': "There where the course is, Delight makes all of the one mind." He might have been referring to the gee-gees, but he could just as easily have been speaking of romance at the races. When the social lubricants of booze and banter are mixed in, it makes a heady cocktail.

"The champagne tent is a great place to meet people, and I would say that the Long Bar in the Millennium Stand are where most of the action is," says Sandra McGinnelly, public relations officer at Ballybrit Racecourse.

Naturally, the potential for a fling in such circumstances is high. Some last about as long as the festival -- "what goes on in Galway, stays in Galway", one society beauty told the Irish Independent -- but the festival has also spawned its fair share of long-lasting love affairs and marriages.

Property developer Sean Dunne and former gossip columnist Gayle Killilea famously met at the Galway Races in 2002. They went on to marry in 2004, celebrating with friends in a ¿1.5m bash onboard the Cristina O, the luxury yacht where Aristotle Onassis once wed Jackie Kennedy.

The euphoric atmosphere at the races is almost certainly to blame for a few romantic matches. Dr Jane Mulrooney runs a cosmetic dermatology clinic in Sandymount, Dublin, with her sister Katherine (where their list of clients includes most of Ireland's who's who) and both women make a point of returning to their native Galway for the fun of the races every July.

"You couldn't miss the Galway Races," says Jane, "because everybody is in a party mood. There are a lot of guys there because of the sport and everyone is up for a chat, swapping tips, flirting, bantering. It's so easy to meet people."

True to form, Jane met now-husband Philip Hackett (of Hackett Bookmakers) at the Galway Races in 2003. As was the Celtic Tiger trend at the time, Jane and Philip met on a helicopter taking revellers out to Ballybrit from the city.

"It was Ladies' Day and the phones were down because it was so busy," says Jane. "He lost all his friends and I lost mine. He got a tip for a horse that came in at 14 to 1 -- I was sticking to him after that!"

Sadly, Jane's father died not long after the races so she was not socialising for several months afterwards, but she and Philip reunited for dinner in Dublin that October. When she moved to London in 2004 to specialise in dermatology it put the couple to the test, but they finally married in May of this year.

Even those folks supposedly focused on the horses have found themselves drawn into the seductive Ballybrit atmosphere. Top-flight trainer Aidan O'Brien met his wife Anne Marie Crowley there over 20 years ago when they were both riding as amateur jockeys in the same race.

"I went up to have a chat to Aidan behind the barriers," Anne Marie says. "We had a bit of a bet going on Aidan's horse." Aidan's horse came in first, Anne Marie came in third and they sealed their partnership by marrying shortly afterwards.

Jockey Barry Geraghty was also celebrating when he met wife-to-be Paula Heaphy at the Galway Races in 2004. "He had had a few winners and was celebrating when a mutual friend introduced us," says Paula. "He was in great form!" The pair didn't meet again until that September at the race festival in Listowel, close to Paula's home, but they went on to have a daughter Siofra, now 4, and were married in Killarney last January.

"We got engaged in Cheltenham. On the Friday they throw a party in the weigh-in room for friends and family," says Paula. "As we had always said we would have a small wedding, I think Barry had it in the back of his mind that we would have a big engagement party. He had told Ruby (Walsh) earlier on that he was going to do it, so Ruby stood up and announced that Barry had a few words to say. The next thing he was on his knee -- that was the best part of it, it was such a big surprise!"

The Geraghtys are looking forward to their Galway outing next week as newlyweds. "Galway is one of our favourites and it will always be special to us because that is where we met," says Paula.

Galway seems to spark big romantic gestures. Take Seamus Forde, for example. Last year he watched as his girlfriend, Mary Therese McDonnell from Co Mayo, was chosen as Best Dressed Lady on the Thursday. Seeing her on the podium in all her pomp, Seamus decided he just had to make her his wife. He proposed two days later and today, they marry in Westport.

"We left Galway that Saturday to go on holidays in Portugal and Seamus proposed," says a delighted Mary Therese. "He told me that he decided on Thursday when was looking up at me on the podium in Ballybrit. He was so hugely proud of me and so glad to be there and part of it."

Spontaneous Seamus contacted a jeweller in Malahide about a ring. "Seamus got the jeweller to take a picture of the ring and sent it to his BlackBerry so he could show it to me when he proposed," says Mary Therese.

The couple will miss this year's Ladies' Day because they will be on honeymoon. "That day at the Galway Races really did change my life," says Mary Therese. "We are looking forward to going back next year as Mr and Mrs Forde."

There is a long tradition of mixing the serious business of racing with pleasure. One of the great romances sparked at the Galway Races was between Lord Killanin, Michael Morris, in whose memory the new Killanin Stand at Ballybrit is named, and his wife Sheila. He was chairman of the Galway Races trust for many years.

"It was just after the war and life was starting all over again," recalls Breda Ryan, whose late husband Patrick was also once chairman of the Galway races. "Lord Killanin was from one of the tribes of Galway and Sheila Dunlop's father was a clergyman in Oughterard. She was home from London, they met in the Great Southern Hotel on one of the race nights and that was it."

The family is still very much part of the fabric of Galway week -- the Killanins' youngest son is respected horse trainer Michael 'Mouse' Morris.

Incidentally, Breda's second-ever date with her husband Patrick was to the races in 1959. "We were introduced at a party and he invited me back to the races," she says. "He later told me that he had previously noticed me cycling past on a bicycle in a yellow dress." They were married for 45 years until Patrick's death in 2004.

In the 1940s, Galway was just a two-day race meet, but Breda recalls that the excitement and glamour was no less for that. "In the war, petrol was scarce so they went out to Ballybrit in jaunting cars and bicycles. My mother-in-law would be trimming hats weeks in advance for women to wear.

"Nothing has changed there -- it was always a place for ladies of great flair to strut their stuff," says Breda, whose son Anthony Ryan, MD of the family department store on Shop Street, is sponsoring the Best Dressed Ladies competition on the Thursday.

The romantic story of the Killanins might be just the thing to inspire the singletons who will be saddling up for potential romance on the second floor of the Killanin stand on the Friday evening of the races.

In the largest-ever singles event held at a racecourse, AnotherFriend.com and the Galway Races are hosting The Singles Party, which kicks off with the first race at 5pm and continues until 10pm and the 'lover buses' run to Eyre Square all evening, should you find a dead cert for romance and wish to go on to celebrate!

It's a new twist to finding romance on the Ballybrit stands as the country's finest horse flesh flashes by. Tickets are e25 and include admission, a drinks voucher, a free e5 tote bet and the services of a DJ to help punters show off their finest mating moves on the dancefloor (see anotherfriend.com for more info).

The Galway Races have always been a good place to mingle with other singles but getting them all together under one roof? Those are surely excellent odds for finding a mate at Race Week.

FIRST PUBLISHED HERE: http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/love-sex/meeting-your-true-love-at-the-galway-races-2269958.html

Valentine's Day Massacre

As another Valentine's Night draws to a close, I can be pleased with the knowledge that I did not add to the vomit-inducing hearts and flowers fluff in the features pages. Instead, I asked a few well-known Irish faces for their anecdotes about dating disasters and unfunny Valentines.
Nothing like a shot of schadenfruende to make the heart grow fonder...

From yesterday's Weekend magazine in the Irish Independent:

VALENTINE’S DAY is a tough time to be heartbroken, single – or even to be in a relationship. The hearts-and-flowers expectations of the date can make the most practical person feel hard done by if they’re not being whisked off to Paris in a hot air balloon.
To make us all feel better, some well-known faces have been telling Weekend about their past dating disasters and worst Valentine’s Days. The path of true love rarely runs smooth….

VIP publisher MICHAEL O’DOHERTY remembers a terrible blind date who ended up blind drunk.
“About 10 years ago, a family member set me up on a blind date with a girl he worked with. She was sold to me as a doctor (promising...), tall and blonde (another box ticked...), and was funny, charming and without any obvious hang-ups (OK, I'm sold). We arranged to meet in a bar for one, before going to dinner.
She turned up 45 minutes late and, while pretty, was wearing Doc Martens and combats. She asked for a pint of Guinness and, 15 minutes later, another one. When I reminded her about dinner, she suggested one for the road.
An hour and a half, and four pints later, she suggested we skip dinner, and go to a concert in the Sugar Club. Once there, she raced to the bar, ordered two cocktails, sat down with me for 30 seconds, and then announced “I need to dance”. She ran (alone) to the dance floor, and started dancing with the first guy she saw.
Then I did something I'm not proud of - I walked out without even saying goodbye. I never saw her again, nor did I ever go on a blind date again. I'm guessing she married a publican.”

Novelist NIAMH GREENE on her romantic break from hell.
“My husband , then boyfriend, took me to County Cork as a Valentine’s surprise years ago. We were both poor students at the time and he had saved for ages to pay for it so it was a very special occasion.
Things didn’t start well when we were given the smallest, grottiest room in the place – it felt no bigger than the broom cupboard and the bedclothes looked suspiciously rumpled. There was one grimy window (with iron bars in case we felt inclined to try to escape).
Dinner was included in the stay - as was half a bottle of house white - but the dining room was strangely empty. We were practically the only people there. I began to realise why when the meal was slapped in front of us by a scowling waitress who clearly felt very underwhelmed by her job.
We tried to enjoy it, despite her fierce attitude and the terrible food (prawn cocktail, chicken or ham, trifle). But then I found a long black hair resting under my grey looking ham and I lost my appetite somewhat.
I didn’t say anything though; I was far too scared what the waitress might do to me.
We persevered and tried to feel romantic, but the last straw was when she plonked herself across from us, emptied her tip jar and proceeded to count out the coins one by one, muttering about tight-fisted diners all the while. We finally admitted defeat when she began stacking chairs onto the tables around us. It was still only nine o’clock.
Even though it was such a disaster, we were hysterical with laughter about it afterwards, even when we discovered the bath had a scummy soap ring round it and a previous guest had left countless used tissues in the bedside locker. The experience proved what I already knew – there was no-one else in the world I’d rather be with, through thick or thin. Twenty odd years later I still feel exactly the same way.”

Broadcaster and All-Ireland Talent Show judge JOHN CREEDON knows what it is to suffer for love – his first date combined public humiliation, walking 16 miles in the dark and getting bitten by a dog.
“My very first date was a complete Valentine’s Day disaster. I was a young fella, 16 or 17, down in west Cork and I really, really fancied this girl I met at a disco in the town. Well, it was a bit of a makeshift disco but they did have those UV lights that were new at the time. So I asked her to meet me again the following night, which was Valentine’s, at the same place.
I was so excited, looking forward to my hot date. I had my groovy pair of monkey boots on – they were the precursors to Doc Martens – and I thought I was the coolest thing ever. The sole had come away from the upper, so before I went out I found some Bostik glue in my aunt’s kitchen and lathered that all over it. I was all set.
I waited and waited outside the ‘disco’ until I thought I had been stood up. She finally approached me and said: ‘John, how are you?’ I hadn’t recognised her at all – I thought she had freckles and really white teeth from what I’d seen the night before. Obviously I wasn’t used to that ultra-violet effect!
So that didn’t impress her and when we got inside, it went pear-shaped altogether. I started dancing around until not only she was looking at me but half the dancefloor. The Bostik was luminous under the UV light and I had a giant glowing foot. I looked like my leg was radioactive.
To top it off, my cousin was due to give me a lift back from the disco in Castletownbere to my aunt and uncle’s in Adrigole but I missed him. I had to walk 16 miles home on a freezing February night. And then I got bitten by a dog on the walk home. I got back at 7.30am and I’ve never been so glad to see my bed.”

Weather and Lotto presenter NUALA CAREY was once offered a romantic weekend away – but ended up on a hen night instead.
“My birthday falls around Christmas so it’s bad news for guys – it can be hard enough thinking up one present, never mind two. So this one Christmas, the guy I had been with for a good while covered all bases with a message in my Christmas card that he would treat us to a weekend away in the new year.
That was fine, but things hadn’t been going terribly well. As time ticked on, I felt the relationship was doomed and I think he probably did to. So in the end, I said straight out to him, ‘Look, I don’t think I can fit in a weekend away at the moment, so just give me the money instead and I’ll treat myself.’
He gave me e200 so he got a bit of bargain really – that wouldn’t have covered a weekend in Paris! In fact, I think I went away on someone’s hen weekend with it in the end. I know it sounds terrible, but I think it worked out better than us going away and being miserable together.
Sometimes it’s not about the big gestures. If we stopped for petrol and a guy went in to pay and came out of the garage shop with a bar of my favourite chocolate, I’d be just as touched and impressed.”

COLM LIDDY knows something about marriage - his book, I Love You, But… 40 Fights Between Husbands and Wives, has just been published as a Penguin paperback – but says romance is hard to make room for when you’re married with kids…
“Here’s how Valentine’s Day goes for my wife and I: We kick off with an attempt at breakfast in bed. Within minutes, we have several other little bodies – our smallest is two – jumping in with us, so it’s all about putting extra milk in the tea to avoid second-degree scalding.
My wife would be very of the school of ‘Now, don’t be getting me anything,’ but wait until the bouquets of flowers start arriving for everyone else in work… Ignore what she says and get a gift.
After work, where you’ve obviously sent her the contents of an Interflora van, you might want to make preparations for going out for a romantic dinner. If you haven’t got a babysitter already arranged, forget about it. If you have, the wife will want to tidy the house before she gets ready to go out in case the babysitter might see the place looking untidy.
Once the babysitter arrives, they are on the clock and you still have to get ready after all the tidying. Then there’s the drive to make the dinner reservation on time, and the wife getting stressed because you’re driving too fast and you tell her men have superior eye to hand co-ordination and anyway 99 per cent of accidents happen to other people.
After you’ve had a dinner served by waiters who didn’t want to be rostered for this night and driven home quickly again to let the babysitter off, you’re about to hit the sack, exhausted. Until the three-year-old needs to go to the toilet because the babysitter didn’t make her go before she went to bed. Yes, that’s a fairly typical Valentine’s.”

Young novelist RUTH GILLIGAN found that you need a good sense of humour to cope with the dating scene in America, where she is currently in college.
“I was on my first date with this guy and it hadn’t been great, so I was happy when we finished dinner. But when we came out of the restaurant, we couldn’t remember where the car was parked. I had had a couple of glasses of wine, so I definitely wasn’t sure and he was really embarrassed.
After a good half hour walking up and down the neighbouring streets, he decided to ring the car pound and sure enough – it had been towed. To make matters worse, he had only brought cash for the meal and didn’t even have a credit card on him, so I had to pay to get the car released.
I could see the funny side of it, but sadly, Americans don’t have quite the same sense of humour at times and he took himself very seriously. We left the restaurant at ten and it took the guts of two hours to locate the car and get it back. By the time midnight came, I had most certainly turned into a pumpkin.”

PADDY POWER of the bookmakers Paddy Power saved up for the grand romantic gesture but it was lost on his Valentine’s date.
“I was only in college and saved up for a couple of months to buy my girlfriend a Russian wedding ring. It was 45 quid at the time which was really expensive for me. I was so excited, it was my first time buying a piece of jewellery for a girl.
So we went out for dinner on Valentine’s night and it was all going well until the subject of jewellery came up. She mentioned that she thought giving someone a ring could be really presumptuous – and all the while, there I was with this ring burning a hole in my pocket.
I had also organised that the chef would come out and give Jane – that was her name – a rose. The guy came out alright, handed her the rose and said, ‘Happy Valentine’s Day… Lisa’. At that stage, there was nothing for it but to give her the ring. She was so embarrassed that she almost ran away and I went home and told my mum what had happened.
Still, Jane did later become my wife – although she had to wait about ten years before I offered her a ring again.”

Model RUTH O’NEILL was dreading Valentine’s Day after breaking up with her first boyfriend – until her dad became her knight in shining armour.
“There’s only one Valentine’s that sticks out in my mind. I was 18 and I had just broken up with my first real boyfriend in middle of studying for my Leaving Cert mocks. I was completely devastated – life was just awful and Valentine’s Day was going to be awful, as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t eat in the week running up to it, I felt so heartbroken.
Then on the day itself, I went with my dad who wanted to look around a car salesyard. Very romantic. And then my dad just turned around and bought me a Mini-Cooper car. I jumped on top of him, I was so excited. Now this was the height of the boom – around 2006 – so don’t think this would happen every year. But my dad has always been one to buy my sister and I heart-shaped boxes of chocs every year. He was my knight in shining armour that year – although he rode in a black Mini, not a white horse!”
-As told to SUSAN DALY