It's 9 P.M. backstage in the dome on Friday, the finale night of the Mullingar Guinness International Bachelor Festival. there's a few hundred folk sitting out front, waiting for the action to begin, when the 1998 Bachelor will be selected by a panel of judges after being interviewed on stage by Maxi. To qualify for the festival, which has been running for several years, men must be over 24 and single. Irish roots are not essential, but patronage of Irish pubs abroad apparently is, since all the five overseas entrants for 1998 were selected through competitions run by Irish bars in their home cities.

So what makes a good bachelor? "A sense of humour is essential," says Joe Keohan, the festival PRO. "And Gods knows he has to be an extrovert to get up on that stage."

Clodagh Small is the present Miss Irish Sun and one of the judging panel. The judges have already interviewed the bachelors earlier this afternoon. "There's great potential in some of them," Clodagh says. Potential for what? "To be good husbands," is the reply. Clodagh is 19.

The festival runs for a week in Mullingar, during which time the bachelors do a circuit of lunches, sporting events, karaoke and shopping centre visits. The winner gets two cheques for £1,000, one of which goes to the pre-nominated charity of his choice. Four of the contenders for the 1998 title are Irish and the other five are from the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Scotland and France.

"There's a lot more testosterone here than you'd find at the Rose of Tralee," grins Alan O'Rourke (27), representing Mullingar, as he waits his turn to go on stage. All the lads are in tuxes, apart from Brian Gallager (34), the Scottish entrant. He's wearing the full kilt gear, including the infamous sporran which, he says, contains a biro and the words for his party piece.

There's a canopy of smoke over the table where we're sitting and every now and then the door of the dome flaps open beside us to reveal the twinkling lights of the fairground which has been set up in the adjoining field. The chair-o-planes go round and round. Children scream. The smell of chips and candyfloss wafts in. Then the door flaps shut again and we're enclosed in the testosterone zone again.

"The greatest gift I can give these lads is to let them shine," Maxi confides, before she goes on stage. She has been compering the event for a decade. "My job is to make them as comfortable as possible." Maxi is introduced on stage as "The little woman with the big name".

First up on stage is Nils Hailer (29) from Germany. All the other lads get up from their seats backstage and start shouting encouragement to him. "I'm here for the Eurokisses," Nils tells the audience, which provokes much amusement.

Pierre Royer (26) came to the stage of the Mullingar Bachelor Festival via the James Joyce pub in Paris. He doesn't speak any English, apart from the useful phrase he acquired recently, "World Cup".

On stage with Pierre is Isabelle Vigouroux, a young Frenchwoman who is working in Mullingar and who is his translator for the evening. The interview is like a three-way long-distance phone call, with gaps in between the questions and answers, but the audience loves it. "How have you got on with the Irish girls you've met here?" Maxi asks. "I speak the body language," Isabelle translates.

Pierre explains that the reason he is still a bachelor is "because in France you have to be a poet to touch hearts and I am not a poet". A sigh goes round the dome. "Vive la France!" the audience roars. Mullingar is obviously geared up to embrace the Euro.

Jimmy Cullinane (26) is the Munster Bachelor. "If you want to meet a girl, you have to act as funny as possible," he tells Maxi.

"And why wouldn't you just be yourself, Jimmy?" Maxi asks.

Jimmy looks amazed at this suggestion. "If I was just myself," he explains patiently, "I'd be left sitting in the corner all night and none of the girls would talk to me."

Raymond McCulloch (26), representing Leinster, is the brother of last year's winner. For his party piece, he cheerfully murders a version of Molly Malone. Backstage, his fellow bachelors form a line, link arms, and start singing along and swaying together. It's Auld Lang Synge meets the fishmonger. "We did a lot of male bonding this week," they tell each other in between belting out the tale of the demise from fever of Molly. At the end of the ballad, there is a group hug.

Last up on stage is Pat Connolly (26) from New York. Pat is about 10 feet tall, is wearing a black-and-white chequered waistcoat and a huge smile. Maxi looks round for a crane to hoist her up to speaking distance. Pat, Maxi tells us, works as a barman in a New York pub called, most appositely, The Matchmaker.

It's after midnight now and the noise level in the audience has risen gradually over the evening, with people trooping to the bar and swapping seats. Within two minutes of Pat arriving on stage, the place goes quiet. I'm sitting out front now. "He's got class," one girl whispers to her companion, who replies something which is unprintable verbatim, but which goes along the lines of "I'd like to take that nice young man home with me".

"I like to dance," Pat says brightly. "I'd like to meet someone who's good fun to hang out with." Several female members of the audience remind Pat that there will be a disco later and that they too are keen on dancing. Then the lights go out.

It's the first year the festival has moved out of a local hotel and the generator for the dome, after behaving beautifully all week, has decided to give some serious grief. There is great scurrying backstage and the sound of muffled blaspheming. The audience holds up cigarette lighters and start singing Sinatra's New York, New York.

After some considerable time, the lights come back on. Unperturbed by the interval, Pat gives us a session on the accordion, and then the five-member jury adjourns to confer.

"Next year, all bachelors wanting to enter the competition will have to be electricians before they'll qualify," P.J. McAllister of the organising committee quips. The jury comes back, the envelope is handed over. "Tell us, tell us," the audience chants, as all the bachelors come out on stage again, arms linked.

The winner is Pat, the New York barman, and nobody is surprised, least of all his 84-year-old granny who has travelled up from Connemara especially to support him. It's all over. Stewards start clearing the chairs away for the disco. Hot Chocolate's You Sexy Thing is belting out on the sound system, as the bachelors straighten their bow-ties and head up town en masse to a pub to continue their bonding session.