Rose of Tralee

Logo
Formation	1959; 67 years ago (1959)
Type	Celebration of Irish women
Headquarters	Tralee,County Kerry, Ireland
Location	Ireland
Official language	English
Website	roseoftralee.ie

TheRose of Tralee International Festival is an annual celebration of Irish women held inTralee inCounty Kerry featuring contestants fromIreland or from theIrish diaspora.

The festival takes its inspiration from a 19th-centuryballad of thesame name about a woman called Mary, who because of her beauty was called "The Rose of Tralee". The words of the song are credited to C. Mordaunt Spencer and the music toCharles William Glover, but a story circulated in connection with the festival claims that the song was written by William Pembroke Mulchinock, a wealthyProtestant, out of love for Mary O'Connor, a poor Catholic maid in service to his parents.^[1]

The festival has its origins in the localCarnival Queen, once an annual town event.^[2]In 1957, the Race Week Carnival was resurrected in Tralee, and it featured a Carnival Queen. The idea for the festival came when a group of local business people met in Harty's bar, Tralee to come up with ideas to bring more tourists to the town during the horse racing meeting and to encourage expats to return to their native Tralee. Led by Dan Nolan, then managing director ofThe Kerryman newspaper, they hit on the idea of the Rose of Tralee Festival. The event started in 1959 on a budget of £750.^[3]

The founders of the organisation were Billy Clifford, an accountant with the Rank Organisation, who was one of the first recipients of the Golden Rose award (which was inaugurated to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Festival of Kerry); Dan Nolan, owner of the local newspaper The Kerryman, involved with the Tralee Races; Jo Hussey, a shopkeeper in Tralee; Ted Keane Snr, a local restaurateur, and Margaret Dwyer, a New Yorker, with strong Tralee roots, who moved back to Tralee in 1948 with her two young boys having been widowed in 1945.

Originally, only women from Tralee were eligible to take part. In the early 1960s it was extended to include any women from Kerry, and in 1967 it was further extended to include any women of Irish birth or ancestry.^[3] Recent winners have included women of mixed heritage: Mindy O'Sullivan (Filipina-Irish), Tara Talbot (Filipina-Irish), Clare Kambamettu (Indian-Irish) and Kirsten Mate Maher (Zambian-Irish). On winning the title in 2018 Maher said "There is no 'typical Irish woman'. We're all different and we all come in all shapes and sizes and skin colours... We're such a diverse community, and we need to embrace that".^[4]

In 2004 theRose of Tralee Regional Finals were introduced to offer more people an opportunity to participate in the Rose of Tralee International Festival. It was held every year until 2015 inPortlaoise,County Laois on the June Bank Holiday weekend.

In the inaugural Regional Final, fourteen women competed for three places in the Rose of Tralee International Festival in August. It became bigger each year and in 2015 the Regional Finals brought together 56 Roses from the United States, Ireland, Britain, Europe, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. Over three selection nights, seven Irish Roses and sixteen International Roses were then selected to progress and join the other 9 Roses at the Rose of Tralee International Festival in August.

From 2004 to 2015, the number of Rose Centres grew to more than 65. In 2014 it was announced that the 2015 Regional Finals would be the last, in favour of a revamped selection process held in Tralee.

The 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to the restrictions in place to address theCOVID-19 pandemic in Ireland.^[5][6] In December 2021, it was announced that the festival would return in 2022.

In December 2021, it was also announced by Anthony O'Gara that married women and transgender women can enter for the Rose of Tralee, and that the maximum age limit had increased to 29 years of age.^[7]

In July 2023, it was announced thatKathryn Thomas would joinDáithí Ó Sé as a co-host, marking the first time that the event would have two presenters.

The Rose of Tralee festival is held every year inTralee,County Kerry, to choose a young woman to be crowned the Rose. The winner is the woman deemed best to match the attributes relayed in the song: "lovely and fair". She is selected on the basis of personality and should be a good role-model for the festival and ambassador for Ireland during her travels around the world. It is not a beauty pageant and the participants (Roses) are not judged on their appearances but on their personality and suitability to serve as ambassadors for the festival. The festival bills itself as a celebration of the "aspirations, ambitions, intellect, social responsibility and Irish heritage" of modern young women.^[3]

Each of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland selects a Rose, and the international Roses, chosen from around the world, also participate in the qualifying rounds now staged in the Festival Dome in Tralee. Ultimately, 32 Roses are selected to appear in the televised selection finals onRTÉ One, out of whom one is crowned the Rose of Tralee.

The selection, which is broadcast over two nights by RTÉ, has been hosted byDáithí Ó Sé since 2010.^[8] It was previously presented for 17 years byGay Byrne. Other previous presenters includeJoe Lynch,Terry Wogan,Brendan O'Reilly,Michael Twomey,Kathleen Watkins,Derek Davis,Marty Whelan,Ryan Tubridy andRay D'Arcy. The first presenter of The Rose of Tralee (before it was televised) was Kevin Hilton.

The festival overcame financial difficulties in 2004, and has strengthened with growing visitor numbers and maintaining strong viewer figures.^[9]

The maximum age for women is 29 years of age.^[10] Married women are also eligible to enter as of December 2021.^[7] Until the year 2008, unmarried mothers were not allowed to enter the contest.^[11]

Men also participate in the show in the form of Rose Escorts, who assist the Roses during their time in the festival. The escort who works hardest is named "Escort of the Year", and is invited back to the festival the following year.

TheChannel 4 comedyFather Ted parodied the festival in the episode "Rock-a-Hula Ted" where the eponymous character is asked to host the local "Lovely Girls" competition.^[3] Will Scally produced and directed a Channel Four documentary calledRose of Tralee.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the festival in 2009, 50 Roses took part in the 2009 competition; usually there are around 30.

In 2014,Maria Walsh revealed that she was gay after winning.^[12][13][14]

Michele McCormack (1985 Chicago Rose) has gone on to win an Edward R. Murrow Award in her chosen profession of broadcast journalism. She hosts selection contests in Philadelphia and in the Midwest of the USA. (She credits her interview technique to Gay Byrne, who hosted the contest when she was in Tralee.) Other notable Roses includeAoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin of Mayo (2005 winner),Aoife Mulholland of Galway (2003) who went on to achieve acclaim as an actor, andNoreen Culhane (New York Rose 1970) now executive vice-president of theNew York Stock Exchange.

Gabby Logan, the BBC TV sports presenter, was the Leeds Rose in 1991.^[15]

Jeanine Cummins, the author ofAmerican Dirt, participated in the competition in 1993.^[16]

Individual winners;^[17][18]

• The Rose of Tralee (song)

^[19]

Channel Four Television, Rose of Tralee, featuring Gay Byrne, narrator Henry Kelly, directed by Will Scally, correction to previous notification.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toRose of Tralee (festival).

• "Rose of Tralee Official site".
• "Dublin Rose of Tralee Centre".
• "Philadelphia Rose of Tralee Centre". Archived fromthe original on 15 June 2013.
• Binchy, Maeve (1 August 2012)."Rose festival from behind dark spectacles".The Irish Times.

• Rose of Tralee
• Annual events in Ireland
• Beauty pageants in Ireland
• Culture in Tralee
• Recurring events established in 1959

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