New book explores the rise of rural romance from Macra to Tinder

The stereotypical image of a bachelor farmer pining in solitude may be how townies imagine love lives in rural Ireland, but Liadán Hynes’ new book Courting, Tractor Dating, Macra Babies and Swiping Right in Rural Ireland illustrates just how antiquated that portrayal is today. 

Her book explores how people are finding love in modern Ireland and how dating has been utterly transformed by modern technology and dating apps. The matchmaker of our grandparent’s generation and the dance hall of our parents has been replaced by online dating with the advent of Tinder, Bumble and Hinge. Traditional places where you might catch someone’s eye like the pub, church or Macra meeting have been largely superseded by swiping right on a mobile phone screen.

Liadán’s book is a sensitive yet unflinching look at how people are navigating dating when they live in small rural places where options are limited and opportunities to meet others often sporadic. She was keen to try ‘capturing a bit of social history’ and create a ‘picture of what our country is like now’.   

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To create this tapestry Liadán interviews more than 20 individuals from across locations, age profiles, genders, ethnicities and sexual orientation to sketch a ‘moment in time’ portrayal of how singles are meeting in rural places. In so doing she creates a ‘snapshot’ of relationships across Ireland and a mini social history of Ireland has changed dramatically in recent decades.    

Liadán says at the book’s start that Ireland was the third most active place on Tinder in 2020 according to dating.com. As statistically more singles live in cities, singletons in the shires can struggle finding a partner. It is not surprising then that dating apps are increasingly popular in the countryside. 

The lifestyle on farms is not conducive to courting; isolated locations, a demanding 24/7 work culture and a lack of privacy while living at home with your parents can all make dating difficult. Issues around inheritance, succession and the viability of the farm to sustain a living for offspring can make romance complicated and even contentious. An old saying that if you married a farmer you married the farm, still remains largely true. 

That rural women traditionally did large amounts of unpaid work and weren’t always recognised for their contribution to farms has now evolved due to generational change as women in farming are more educated, confident, and visible. For a farmer of either gender looking for a life partner, there is still however a sense that you need to find a person who really understands the farming lifestyle, its demands and its cycles of activity.

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There is also the conflict that can occur between love versus place: a farmer is essentially tied to the location of his/her farm and their partner must accept that. For many this means they must relocate to the farm if they want to pursue the relationship long-term.  

Liadán talks to all kinds of people in piecing together the state of modern love outside Ireland’s cities. She chats to professionals like the founders of Muddy Matches an online dating site especially for people in rural places who say they have 2000 Irish members who are primarily looking for relationships and not just sex. She also talks to Mairead Loughman of The Farmer Wants a Wife, who notes that ‘the smallness of rural communities can be an issue’. 

The couples and singles who share their life stories are candid about the challenges of finding and keeping love alive in the countryside. They include Vicki and Stephen who had the ‘tractor dates’ of the title to accommodate Stephen’s crazy work schedule and Gabriel a Mexican woman who followed the Irish boyfriend (she met on Tinder) to Mayo and struggled with isolation in an alien place. Both women observe that while the countryside has many advantages: the slower pace, immersion in nature and better housing, moving there can also mean losing your independence, at least initially. Both highlight the importance of having your own life and interests outside the farm and the relationship.

Other interviewees include Sophie and Mark, young single farmers whose parents met at Macra na Feirme and are agri influencers, Erica  a transgender farmer, 67 who struggled with their identity and an overbearing patriarchal father and says they were born ‘a bit of a mix up’, and Aoife a divorcée who has come out as gay after moving to Connemara.

We also meet Graham, a gay man from Dublin who now lives and work on Inis Meáin making sweaters, who while he loves the island says it’s a challenge when it comes to relationships and Betsy a bisexual, single mother  living in Carraroe  who says ‘Tinder is a cesspool’ where men are ‘crude and demanding’. She observes that charm is a rare thing on dating apps while explicit photos are common.

For many of the interviewees, dating seems a reluctant chore while they also lament the narrow idea that being coupled up is the only lifestyle that brings fulfilment. The women in particular resent the judgemental nature of Irish society. Many are quite happy being single. Betsy says: “I am genuinely happy being single. And I think there’s this incredibly pervasive narrative that you need a partner to be happy.”

The most striking feature of the book is the diversity of modern rural Ireland - the countryside is no longer homogenous, white, straight or narrow: there are all kinds of people attracted to a rural life for many different reasons. The pandemic prompted a profound re-assessment and created an internal migration within Ireland, largely from city to country that has  impacted rural Ireland in many ways. The country is now ‘cool’ in a way it never was for previous generations. 

Today, largely due to technology, a life in the countryside is now a ‘feasible choice’ says Liadán. Technology has made everywhere smaller and despite the many failings of Tinder and the various dating apps, they also open up different people to those looking for relationships while living in smaller and more isolated locations. 

Liadán says she had an ‘amazing time writing, researching and talking to people’ for Courting etc. She reflects that it was a ‘massive privilege to be asked to write a book’ like this and her empathy with her subjects is evident. Her book makes clear that romance in rural places may be complicated and that how people look for it has evolved, but also that the human heart still seeks companionship and intimacy regardless of its location or orientation.