Remembering Mayo's ‘Cupid priest’ Fr. Michael Keane
By Tom Gillespie
FIFTY-seven years ago The Connaught Telegraph introduced our readers to the ‘Cupid priest’, the late Fr. Michael Keane, who in February 1968 set up the Knock Marriage Bureau, to get girlfriends for lonely west of Ireland bachelors.
It was the lead story in the edition of February 29, with the heading ‘Young curate plays Cupid’.
The story read:
A plan to bring romance to shy bachelors in the women-starved west of Ireland has been put into operation by a young curate living in a remote country parish.
The girls, who will be asked to settle in the five western counties where boys outnumber girls by two to one, live in New York, Boston, London, Birmingham and Dublin.
And they’ll be introduced to the lonely bachelors through a marriage bureau set up in the tiny Co. Mayo village of Knock (pop. 250 in 1968).
Fr. Michael Keane, a 41-year-old curate in Kilkerrin, Co. Galway, has the backing of the Archbishop of Tuam and five bishops of the western dioceses in his attempt to play cupid to the bashful bachelors.
Fr. Keane, who is a native of Claremorris, said: “There are 20,000 more men than women in the west, while in the cities the girls are the ones looking for boys.
“Most of the fellows living in rural areas are shy. They’re afraid to ask a girl for a date because they might be refused. But I know of many Irish girls in America and England who would come back to live in the west if they could meet a good go-ahead type with a medium-sized farm.
“So now it is up to people who know how to interest these girls to do something for them.”
Fr. Keane’s bureau will find the girls by distributing cards giving details of the introduction service in churches, clubs and hotels in Dublin and the larger US and British cities.
They also work in close liaison with marriage bureaus in those densely-populated centres.
Similar cards will be posted in almost 1,000 west of Ireland churches drawing the men’s attention to the service.
Boys and girls will then write to the bureau and their ages, education and background are sifted by the staff of four priests and two lay people. The staff, who will have the services of a secretary, pick out who they think are the most compatible couples and introduce them by letter.
After correspondence photographs are exchanged - again through the bureau - the girl, if she is interested, sends on her address to the man asking him to meet her. Up to that time her address is not disclosed.
“After that they make their own arrangements,” said Fr. Keane. “We are not matchmakers, as they are known in Ireland, and there will be no bargaining about dowries. We simply introduce the couples. After that it is up to them to decide whether they’ll get married.”
Then, almost a year later - January 2, 1969, the Telegraph reported:
The only Catholic marriage bureau in the Irish Republic is starting a drive to find 50 Irish girls in Britain willing to come back to married life in the western counties.
One year after the formation of the bureau at Knock, the organisers admit they have failed to find brides for 50 farmers who are aged between 30 and 45.
The campaign will be launched throughout Britain to find the 50 girls.
Fr. Michael Keane, one of the bureau organisers, said: “We find that most of the girls from the same background as the bachelor farmers have gone to Britain.
“We are sending out brochures and pamphlets to emigrant and church centres in Britain.”
He added: “We already have a large number of applications from professional girls, including bank clerks, office workers and nurses. But in most cases they do not want to settle on the land.”
Apart from that problem, the bureau, in its first annual report, stated that 1968 was a ‘very good year’.
The bureau was set up by the Archbishop of Tuam, Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Walsh, and his five bishops to offset the growing number of bachelors in the west and the dwindling population.
In the last 70 years the population of the west has slumped from nearly 1,000,000 to 445,000 and the men outnumber women by two to one in some areas.
During the year the bureau received 328 applications from men and 432 from women. It made 250 introductions and 45 were reported to be successful.
Fr. Keane admitted: “We do not know if any of the 45 couples successfully introduced have married yet.”
That report pointed out that in Mayo, 90 per cent of the 25 to 30 age group were bachelors.
Aged 82 years, Fr. Keane died in August 2011 in a nursing home in his native Claremorris.
Marketing came naturally to the young Fr. Keane who had an easy-going, gentlemanly,manner and a droll sense of humour.
He did television, radio and newspaper interviews by the dozen. Astutely, he decided to publish the fledgling bureau's annual report around Valentine's Day when, as he once put it himself, "people are thinking of love and such things”.
Fr. Keane, born in 1925, was ordained on June 18, 1950, as a priest of the Archdiocese of Tuam. He served for periods in Cloonfad, Castlebar, Tully Cross (Connemara), Roundstone, Connemara and Kilkerrin (east Galway) before embarking on setting up what is regarded as his most important life's work, the foundation of the Knock Marriage Bureau.
In May 2019, after 50 years, and claiming credit for almost 1,000 unions, the Knock Marriage Bureau announced that it has played cupid for the last time.
Fr. Stephen Farragher, who took over as director after Fr. Keane, said there had been a ‘noticeable decline in the demand for the service offered by Knock Marriage Bureau, to the point that it was no longer viable to run the service.