{"id":5882,"date":"2025-08-17T22:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T22:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5882\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T22:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T22:49:12","slug":"cork-rose-on-having-a-bit-of-craic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5882\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork Rose on ‘having a bit of craic’\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

For as long as she can remember, Nancy Lehane has joined a group of about 12 cousins every year to\u00a0 watch the Rose of Tralee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a family tradition dating back more than 10 years, where she travels to Waterford to join them to watch the selection nights.<\/p>\n

This year, however, the 22-year-old has good reason to break with tradition.<\/p>\n

Her first cousins are instead travelling to Tralee to watch her as she vies for this year\u2019s title.<\/p>\n

Whether or not she wins isn\u2019t something she has thought too much about, although the bookies have her down as the favourite so far.<\/p>\n

Indeed, even taking part in the contest in the first place isn\u2019t something she had ever wanted to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all get together every year and we watch the selection nights,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing that since we were children. It\u2019s usually a group of about 12 or 13 of us first cousins, although some of them are abroad this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never looked at the screen, watched those amazing women over the years, and thought about being one of them one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think any of us in the group of cousins have ever had that kind of conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" The Cork Rose Nancy Lehane and the Ottawa Rose Aidan Russell at Bird’s funfair during the Rose of Tralee International Festival. Pictures: Domnick Walsh<\/p>\n

Quite how she ended up entering the competition to be the Cork Rose happened as a result of a \u201cwhim\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was chatting to my boyfriend after an advert popped up on his phone about becoming an escort for the show, and I suggested he should do it for the craic,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to do it and I was just joking around with him, trying to persuade him to do it, but he wasn\u2019t having any of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he sort of said to me that if I wanted him to do it so badly, why didn\u2019t I be a Rose?<\/p>\n

\n I just thought: \u2018Do you know what? I will.\u2019 So it was on a whim, I suppose you could say.\n <\/p>\n

She said she was shocked to be chosen as the Cork Rose at a contest on June 1, but residents of the small North Cork village where she comes from have been rooting for her ever since.<\/p>\n

Large posters of her adorn every route in or out of Meelin, where she grew up with her five brothers and parents, Denis and Anne Marie.<\/p>\n

The family are heavily involved in local events, especially annual fundraising for causes such as Cancer Connect, the transport service for people undergoing cancer treatment.<\/p>\n

Nancy, who also plays football for St Peter\u2019s, won a Cork North Garda Youth Award in 2017 for her community volunteering and fundraising.<\/p>\n

As well as their community spirit, her parents encouraged Nancy to get into music from an early age.<\/p>\n

She started at five with the concertina and graduated over the years to guitar.<\/p>\n

She started teaching music from the age of 14 to both children and adults.<\/p>\n

As well as being a gifted musician, she is also a talented singer.<\/p>\n

\"CorkCork Rose Nancy Lehane pictured on a visit to the Hunt Museum in Limerick. Pictures: Domnick Walsh<\/p>\n

A former student at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, she is also a former student at Boherbue Comprehensive School.<\/p>\n

She recently completed her degree in primary education in Limerick, and says being a teacher was always a dream job for her.<\/p>\n

Regularly heard singing at Mass on Sundays in her local church, there are those who believe that, if she sings on selection night, she will attract the interest of a record company.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr if she doesn\u2019t, there is no justice in the world,\u201d said Pat O\u2019Callaghan, who owns and runs Quinlan\u2019s Bar in Meelin with his wife Breda.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a very talented musician and, as well as being able to play lots of different instruments, she has this beautiful voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will be blown away when they hear her sing, if she decides to sing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he will be screening the show live in the village\u2019s only bar, three minibuses of supporters will be travelling to Tralee after Lehane\u2019s selection night on Monday night to see the final on Tuesday<\/p>\n

Most will be heading to Turner\u2019s Bar, as it has been designated as the Cork Rose\u2019s supporters\u2019 bar, while family and close friends will be heading to the town\u2019s MTU\u2019s Kerry Sports Arena.<\/p>\n

There, hosts D\u00e1ith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 and Kathryn Thomas will present the Rose of Tralee Selection Nights live on TV on Monday and Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Whether she wins or not, Lehane is unfazed. She said that she \u201chasn\u2019t really thought that far ahead\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n I don\u2019t see it as a competition at all, I just see it as an adventure and a bit of craic.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cI also see it as a celebration of women\u2019s identity and, for me personally, it is a great opportunity to grow in confidence and to celebrate our culture as Irish women.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never expected to get anywhere when I applied to be the Cork Rose, so I am just enjoying every minute of it for what it is,\u201d Lehane added.<\/p>\n

While she sees it as another of life\u2019s learning curves, she had one last year when she worked as a volunteer teacher in Uganda for three weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an unbelievable experience, and it taught me how much we as a country could learn from Ugandans,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many of them have so little, and yet they would give you the shirt off their own back without as much as a bat of an eyelid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found so many people who were happy with so little \u2018things\u2019 or material possessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of things in Ireland, and it was a real eye-opener about how you can have so much more in life with less.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For as long as she can remember, Nancy Lehane has joined a group of about 12 cousins every…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[781,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,1109,5,888,1238,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-5882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-media","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-rose-of-tralee","24":"tag-television","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5882","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=5882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}