Just when the Rose of Tralee appeared to have finally shed its image of a Father Ted parody centred around a fictional Lovely Girls competition, RT\u00c9\u2019s Kathryn Thomas revived it all over again.<\/p>\n
The co-presenter of this year\u2019s second of two selection nights asked the Limerick Rose what she thought about critics of the contest who label it a \u201cbeauty pageant\u201d or a \u201clovely girls competition\u201d.<\/p>\n
In those few short seconds, she reopened a debate many have long since believed is over.<\/p>\n
Commentators have long since grown tired of referencing any notion that contestants – who this year include a diplomate, a barrister, and a financial consultant – have anything in common with the \u201chappy maidens\u201d.<\/p>\n
They were nostalgically referenced in \u00c9amon de Valera\u2019s now infamous, and often misquoted, 1943 radio address about his vision for an ideal Ireland.<\/p>\n
Limerick\u2019s Leah McMahon, a financial planner and mother-of-one, seemed surprised by the question.<\/p>\n
She replied: \u201cWe need festivals to celebrate women. We need these spaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not asking to be more. We are just asking to be on the same level.\u201d Of the critics, she added: \u201cI think critics don\u2019t get it.\u201d Earlier in her appearance, Kathryn\u2019s co-presenter D\u00e1ith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 brought out a surprise birthday cake for her daughter, Ella, who was eight last night. The entire audience sang Happy Birthday to her.<\/p>\n
A diplomat and a consultant with one of the biggest accountancy firms in the world were also among contestants in last night\u2019s Rose of Tralee.<\/p>\n
Highfliers Ottawa Rose Aidan Russell and Queensland Rose Siobhan Edwards joined 12 other roses for the second of two selection nights.<\/p>\n
But while Cork Rose Nancy Lehane had led most of the festival as the favourite to win, a new favourite to emerge was the rose who opened last night\u2019s selection night, Celeine O\u2019Meara.<\/p>\n
Those odds changed before the United Arab Emirates\u2019 first rose contestant, who is a 28-year-old primary school teacher and musician from Limerick, had even appeared on stage at the Kerry Sports Academy at the Munster Technological University (MTU).<\/p>\n
According to Ladbrokes, Celeine – who was welcomed on stage by co-presenter D\u00e1ith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 – was the favourite to win, with odds of 5\/2, as Nancy dropped to third favourite at 6\/1 to win.<\/p>\n
She and the other roses were all following on from the first selection night on Monday, which saw a number of mothers, a judicial assistant from the Four Courts, and a clinical research associate among 18 of the 32 contestants appear.<\/p>\n
The two nights were the culmination of more than five days of the roses being judged in a variety of settings by this year\u2019s panel of judges former Rose of Tralee Clare Kambamettu, RT\u00c9\u2019s Nuala Carey, fashion designer Don O\u2019Neill, and Aisling Murphy of sponsor Murphy\u2019s New Homes.<\/p>\n
Model Celeine, who is on a career break from Scoil an Spioraid Naoimh, Limerick, spoke of her teaching work in Sharjah, UAE, performing at various events across the UAE.<\/p>\n
Next up, Sarah Anne Fritz, the German Rose, told show co-presenter Kathryn Thomas about how her German father wooed her Irish mother with the help of a dictionary as he couldn\u2019t speak English and she couldn\u2019t speak German.<\/p>\n
She also said that she only entered the rose competition after she had a dream about the festival, and woke up deciding she would give it a go.<\/p>\n
Ottawa’s Aidan Russell, who works as a diplomat, told Daithi of how the highest and the lowest point of her life since her father died have been at the Rose of Tralee festival.<\/p>\n
Her father had died just before Christmas, and she is currently involved in a number of legal issues around the settling of his estate.\u2019 \u201cMy highest point was also the lowest point,\u201d the 27-year-old, who hopes one day to be a hostage negotiator, told Daithi.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a really tough night, and I had to step away to deal with some of the legal stuff.\u201d But she said that what helped her get through it was the \u201coutpouring of love\u201d from her fellow roses.<\/p>\n
Also appearing last night was Toronto Rose Rachel Hoare, who delighted in telling Kathryn how she had been treated so well by air crew when she was flying over to Ireland for the contest.<\/p>\n
She told of how she had been given \u201cextra pillows, free drinks, free wifi\u201d.<\/p>\n
The audience heard how she is a stroke survivor, who has learning difficulties, including having Dyscalculia – a learning disability that affects a person’s ability to understand and work with numbers and mathematics.<\/p>\n
Despite this, the audience heard, Rachel has a successful job in the banking industry. Kathryn told her: \u201cYou are amazing. You are incredible.\u201d The presenter revealed singer Daniel O\u2019Donnell would be performing later, as Rachel dressed to do some Irish dancing.<\/p>\n
Aside from all the singing and dancing and associated parades and festivities associated with the festival, which is open to females or those who identify as female aged between 18 and 29 who are Irish-born or of Irish origin, remains a huge money spinner for Kerry.<\/p>\n
Each rose is said to be worth an estimated \u20ac200,000 to the economy of the town and surrounding areas – based on the fact that they will attract at least 200 close family members \u2014 including parents, brothers, sisters, and partners \u2014 along with relatives, friends to Tralee.<\/p>\n
Friends and relatives across Ireland and even around the world will also make the trek, along with a cohort of festival fans from the county or country each rose represents.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that these will all spend at least \u20ac1,000-a-head during the festival, and with this year\u2019s number of roses being 32, that works out at \u20ac6.4m.<\/p>\n
The year-round publicity from festival-related events, including the selection of each rose in Ireland and around the world, continuously promotes the town as a tourist and go-to destination.<\/p>\n
After all the local, regional and national media appearances are accounted for, the sheer volume of publicity for Tralee, Kerry and Ireland from the festival alone is valued at up to \u20ac15m.<\/p>\n
A big part of this will be the coverage afforded to the festival by RT\u00c9, with more than a million of viewers expected to have tuned in over Monday and Tuesday night, with the last night usually getting more than 500,000 viewers on RT\u00c9 One and the RT\u00c9 Player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just when the Rose of Tralee appeared to have finally shed its image of a Father Ted parody…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,888],"class_list":{"0":"post-11036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-rose-of-tralee"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}