Twitter helps reunite Irishman with Canadian crush he met in-flight

Hey Twitter, do you know Katie? Katie from Nova Scotia, Canada? That was pretty much how a global search for an Irishman’s crush started. And in a true testament to the power of the Internet, Jamie Kelly has found his airplane seatmate in a love story that’s gone viral.

They met on a Ryanair flight from Barcelona to Dublin last month. They hit it off and chatted the entire flight. Sparks flew. But the two became separated at the customs line, with the Irishman queuing in the EU-only lane, and Katie Moreau, of Riverport, Nova Scotia, taking the non-EU line.

Despondent, but not defeated, the Galway man took his search to an Irish radio station and to Twitter, with just a first name, age and and her home province to go on. Trending hashtags throughout the story included #loveatfirstflight and #findkatie.

Sympathetic Twitter users picked up on his quest and joined in the search, tweeting messages like, “Katie from Nova Scotia! Some Irish dude really digs you.”

And: “Is your name Katie? Are you from Nova Scotia? Are you traveling around Ireland? Did you recently meet a young lad called Jamie?"

In an email to CBC News in Canada, Moreau, 27, said: “I was obviously very surprised and flattered.

When I was on the plane I talked to him incessantly because I had just been travelling for two months in Italy and Spain and it was just so nice to be around English speaking people, plus I'm a talker. We had lots in common plus he was very easy on the eyes.”

The pair have since been reunited virtually and plan to meet offline. Moreau is currently in Ireland visiting her mother.