Last year’s Rose of Tralee says festival is much more than “lovely girls”

Last year’s Rose of Tralee winner says the festival is so much more than meets the eye.

New Zealand’s Keely O’Grady says she once thought that the event was simply a two-night TV segment, full of “lovely girls” saying “lovely things.”

However, her experience over the past year has changed her mind.

The statement described as the 2024 Rose of Tralee’s farewell message appeared on the festival’s website.

Keely O’Grady writes that she once thought she didn’t belong in the world of the Rose of Tralee and had a similar view to its critics that it’s a parade of sparkles and smiles.

Ms O’Grady says the festival is about connection and community, and celebrating the full spectrum of what it means to be a real modern Irish woman.

She says the Rose of Tralee has had a real tangible impact in providing a platform to charitable organisations including supporting children in Ukrainian orphanages who have been displaced by war.

To her successor Katelyn Cummins, Keely O’Grady advises her to say yes to everything, be unapologetically herself and make the Rose of Tralee her own.