Irish magic from Jennifer Deibel – the best- selling and award-winning author of a series of charming Emerald Isle novels combining history, family, faith and romance. Her newest book, The Irish Matchmaker…introduces matchmaker Catriona Daly. Hi I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today on Binge Reading Jennifer talks about how a US born gal fell in love with Ireland. and her latest book The Irish Matchmaker. As daughter of a well-known matchmaker, Catríona Daly is no stranger to the business of love – and she sees it as her ticket away from the sleepy village that only comes alive during the annual matchmaking festival. Our Giveaway this week Our Giveaway this week is Summer Sleuthing – June Mystery Thrillers. Sadie's Vow – Book #1 in my Home At Last San Francisco historical mystery series is included. Stock up on some great summer reading here! download free summer mysteries ​https://books.bookfunnel.com/summersleuthing/9mwtzhs5pv Before we get to Jennifer – a reminder You can help defray the costs of production by buying me a cup of coffee on buymeacoffee.com/jennywheelx And if you enjoy the show. Leave us a review so others will find us too. Word of mouth is the best way for others to discover the show and great books they will love to read. Links to things mentioned in the episode A Dance In Donegal, Jennifer Deibel:  https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Donegal-Jennifer-Deibel/dp/0800738411 The Princess Bride (movie) Irish location:  https://giggster.com/guide/movie-location/where-was-the-princess-bride-filmed#: Lisdoonvarna:  https://matchmakerireland.com/ https://www.ireland.com/en-us/destinations/county/clare/lisdoonvarna The Maid of Ballymacool, Jennifer Deilbel: https://jenniferdeibel.com/books/the-maid-of-ballymacool/ Willie Daly, Irish matchmaker: https://www.williedaly.com/ Books Jennifer is reading: Jaime Jo Wright, The Lost Boys of Barlow Theater: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90203406-the-lost-boys-of-barlowe-theater Natalie Walters Snap agency series:  https://www.amazon.com/The-SNAP-Agency-3-book-series/dp/B08XW1LGC3 Where to find Jennifer Online Website: www.jenniferdeibel.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferdeibel_author Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferDeibelAuthor Introducing author Jennifer Deibel But now, here’s Jennifer Hello there, Jennifer,  and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Jennifer Deibel - Historical Irish mysteries with magic Jenny Wheeler: But now here's Jennifer. Hello there, Jennifer, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Jennifer Deibel: Hi Jenny. Thanks so much for having me. I'm looking forward to chatting. Jenny Wheeler: These Irish stories are both best sellers and award winners.  How did you come to start on the Irish story thread? Jennifer Deibel: It all feels like it happened by accident, but I believe everything happens by design. My husband and I had lived in County Donegal for two years as students. We were studying the language and the culture. My husband had fallen in love with all things Celtic after spending a summer abroad in Wales during university. We spent two years there and when we came back I was expecting our first baby. He went into graduate school in Texas and I was struggling to process all we had experienced in those two years. An Irish American girl moves to Donegal The idea for what would eventually become my debut novel, A Dance in Donegal, came to me, a story about an Irish American girl who moves to rural Donegal to teach. I started writing it then and of course once my baby was born, it sat for a very long time. It took about 15 years for me to actually finish the whole manuscript. During which time we moved back to Ireland and lived in County Galway. While we were there, we had our son and I heard about a parenting website that was starting up called The Better Mom and they were looking for contributors. I applied there and was accepted and was encouraged to start my own blog, so readers would have a place to go to if they liked what I had to say on The Better Mom. My blog opened the door for me to write for some other publications across the country, and that's when I started making the connections that would eventually lead to my first book contract, which I signed, I believe in 2018. It was a long road, and I never thought as a child that I would write a book. But I always thought it was something that would be fun to do. I just didn't think I was capable of it. So that time in Ireland really is what planted the seeds of ideas for all of these stories. Was there a little Celtic in their blood? Jenny Wheeler: Did either you or your husband have Irish ancestry that might explain that magic thing that seemed to have captivated you? Jennifer Deibel: Absolutely. My maiden name is Martin and where we lived in Galway was actually not too far from one of the main Martin strongholds in Ireland centuries ago. So I've got that background is in my blood. My husband has English and Welsh on his side. His grandmother was born right on the border of Wales in England, so we've got the Celtic blood in our veins for sure. Jenny Wheeler: Oh, that's great. Now, the one we are talking about today is the fourth in this Irish series, The Irish Matchmaker. And I hadn't realized until I read the book that matchmaking is closely woven into Ireland as a tradition. The idea of a village matchmaker... I gather that it still does exist today in these days of Tinder. Tell us about the matchmaker in Irish village life. Jennifer Deibel: So, it's really fascinating. I first learned about it when we were living in Galway, and we would have tour groups come over that we would lead and we would take them all around and driving from Galway City down to the Cliffs of Mohr, which to some people might be better known as the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride (movie). We passed through a little village called Lisdoonvarna, and there was always a huge billboard for their annual matchmaking festival. The more I looked into it, I discovered that in this particular village it sarted in the late 18 hundreds when a doctor discovered the mineral content of the wells in that area were very high and could be used for medicinal purposes. The fancy, rich, cultured folk would come in the fall to take the waters and use that opportunity to set their children up with each other because it was one of the few times that gentrified people were around other people of their stations to be able to do that. A third generation Irish matchmaker At the same time, the harvest had just ended and the farmers were coming into town to spend their money and make trades and do market days with their livestock and things like that. The farmers finally had time and money to look for love. It was born out of this, seeming happenstance and it continues on for the entire month of September. To this day, Willie Daly is the current matchmaker. He's third generation, and he continues to match people up all throughout the festival and is pretty well known worldwide for it. Jenny Wheeler: Did you get to talk to Willie Daly? Jennifer Deibel: I did. We spoke over email multiple times. We tried to set up a phone call, but that was difficult to do with him, of course, being in Ireland and me being in America and he wasn't super comfortable with Zoom. But he was able to provide me with lots of valuable information about what it was like for him as a child growing up with a father who was a matchmaker, as well as his time as a matchmaker himself. And he also wrote a memoir called Ireland's Last Matchmaker. And it's an absolutely charming read. If you're ever wondering what it's like. It reads like a novel almost and gives the details of what goes into matchmaking. What's the terminology for each different part of the process and what does that look like, and what goes into deciding who would be a good match and who wouldn't be, and all of that. It's absolutely fascinating, and invaluable to me through the course of writing this book, for sure. A successful family business Jenny Wheeler: Catriona, your heroine and her father Jimmy, run a very successful family business as matchmakers. They have inherited this down the generations, and I gather that there is an aspect of it that is an inherited skill as well as, perhaps some of it being learned almost like an intuition. Tell us about that aspect of it. Jennifer Deibel: I think you can't help - like any family business - if you grow up in that environment, you can't help but naturally absorb a lot of the skills and thought processes and intuition that goes with it. My husband's family were a mechanic and auto family and it seems like they all are born knowing all this stuff about cars. And I think that's how it was for Catriona and Jimmy and certainly how it seemed to be for Willie, our real life matchmaker. Being immersed in that from day one. And being able to have a front row seat to that. You get to learn how to read people in a way that I think other people might miss. And you learn how to look beyond just the surface. While two people might seem good on paper for one another, sometimes there's something within the meeting that a matchmaker might pick up on that someone in the general public might not. And I think it's a little bit genetic and a little bit learned just from being immersed in that process and in that culture and having a life of observation and reading people, which I think is really cool. Never Miss out!Never miss out on the hottest new authors, regular FREE BOOK OFFERS and Most Popular podcasts.Yes please to FREE BOOKS and updates on popular booksWe won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time..formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"] *{box-sizing:border-box;}.