The Rose of Tralee festival remains, after almost 60 years, one of the television highlights of the RTÉ schedule. It defies all expectations of what a modern viewer wants, with its quaint and queasily old-fashioned notions of what the pinnacle of young womanhood is.
Bookended by May’s Eurovision Song Contest, a series of camp performers singing badly from all over the continent, the Rose of Tralee, a series of devoutly earnest women – often singing badly – from all over the world, brings the heady days of the TV summer to a close.
These fresh-faced roses bloom on our screens in a pageant where the only requirements appear to be a claim to Irish heritage, the capacity to find a sponsor, and the ability to hold a conversation with a man on stage while looking out into a sea of home-made banners.
It’s silly, sweet, ridiculous, and nonsensical, involving an audience up for the craic, resting their cracks on chairs that will be used for a wedding come Saturday, while cracking smiles at the inherent pride you cannot but feel when a loved one or friend gets a moment in the limelight.
Last night’s show, 90 minutes of quality spread out over three hours, albeit with a pit stop for the news with Eileen Dunne, did what a nation needed it to. As tragedy, violence, and death fill the news cycle, and a housing crisis looms darkly on the horizon, it was nice to sit and bask in the undeniable silliness of the Rose of Tralee. Here are the 10 moments that defined the first show:
10. Sponsorship
Running the show is a business, and it takes money. Which is why the Rose of Tralee requires a lot of sponsors, and they each want their pound of flesh. Which is why, before the show starts, we have to sit through a never-ending collection of logos streaming across the screen. Seriously, you have time to fill a kettle, boil the water, steep the teabag, and sit back down before they’ve finished reminding you that some Irish companies paid out for this prime marketing opportunity.
9. A Twist of Faith
Several Roses, at odds with the cynical godless media, professed to their close relationship with their Catholic faith on stage, leading to repeated jokes on Twitter about the dearth of Protestant representation. And then, like an angel sent from reformation heaven, Daphne Howard (has there ever been a more Church of Ireland name?), arrived on stage, representing Longford with ladylike grace, poise, and piano playing. A watershed moment in the history of Christianity on the island.
8. Newbridge Jewellery
Clearly, and in what can only be described as lucky-dip chance, the Roses are conscripted to act as walking billboards for one of the festivals chief sponsors, Newbridge Silverware. In necklaces of varying styles, sizes, taste levels, and appropriateness to the dress they are wearing, the Roses walk out on stage draped in chunky coral-reef collars, blingin’ bangles and cuffs, the likes of which every Irish girl dreads receiving as a present from her godparents when she makes her confirmation.
The Rose of Tralee 2015 gold-tone coral cuff [Newbridge silverware]
The less said about the jewellery set included in the main prize package, the better.
7. Poetry and other talents
It used to be that you had to have a talent, but now a sparkling wit and a timely anecdote about a naming mishap is enough to get you through your minutes on stage. But the choice remains, and a number of Roses opted to read their own poems, jolly rhyming couplets laden with the kind of imagery you’d find in a first year English school textbook, while some guard puffs away at the oilean pipes to create a mood.
That's some skill - she can say all 32 counties in 8 seconds! Give this girl the crown now! #roseoftralee pic.twitter.com/6dHfvUAaJK
— RTÉ 2fm (@RTE2fm) August 17, 2015
If it isn’t poetry, it’s a jig or a reel, or ballads sung in nasal tones, while the camera pans across the audience filled with family members. Is that a tear in granny’s eye, or has she been dazzled by the light reflecting off the Rose’s diamante choker with hanging cameo pendant?
Or throwing the other Roses under the bus...
That moment when the Monaghan Rose revealed the Louth Roses had a crush... on her brother #RoseofTralee pic.twitter.com/7ELjhyjgzm
— RTÉ Player (@RTEplayer) August 17, 2015
6. Daithí ó Sé
Listen, darlings, this is a one-man show. And nobody, whether she’s a cancer survivor, volunteer worker, or regal Protestant is going to steal focus from the king of Kerry. Capiche?
5. The Garda Band
Taking their musical cues from a racially-insensitive 1970s BBC sitcom, our boys in blue introduce each and every Rose, daughters of the worldwide Irish diaspora, with a short piece of music plucked from the score of questionable stereotypes.
“Who’s next?” “Melbourne.” “What should be play, captain?” “We’ll play the music from Home & Away, Johnsy.” “But captain, Home & Away is based in Sydney. Maybe we should play the theme from Neighbours, which is set in Melbourne?” “’You know we belong together’, Johnsy, from the top. A one, two, three, four...”
4. Cancer and scoliosis
It’s inspiring to hear about two young women, not even women at the time, facing the earth-shattering news of a cancer diagnosis with courage and dignity, coming to terms with the disease, fighting it, and winning. Kerry and Meath, you get a free pass on scathing comments.
Less inspiring to hear, perhaps, is Daithí’s masterful ability to casually gloss over an abnormal lateral curvature of the spine when talking to the Derry Rose.
“You’re going to dance for us,” Daithí said, beaming at Eiméar Anderson. “But before that, you have scoliosis?”
Seamless.
3. Subtext and codified answers
The Roses know that they are going to be interviewed on national television, so they come prepared. Their responses to questions thrown out by Daithí are not lies, but subversions of the truth, masked in euphemistic eloquence.
Take, for instance, one of the Roses who explained how hard it was to give up her permanent job as a teacher, but that the decision to do so was fuelled by a desire to teach in the Middle East, experiencing new cultures, broadening her horizons.
Or... earning a tax free wage to save the deposit on a house before returning to her job following a five-year career break.
2. Escorts
What exactly is it that the escorts do? Carry bags? Hold open doors? Ritually sacrifice the Puck Fair goat on the summit of the Dome? Who knows?
All we do know is that for one weekend, the lads have gas craic, dressed like cult members and bullied into doing farm work in front of a camera, with one lingering shot on the one who is the most gas craic of all of them doing something that the lads just love.
And don’t think that they escape the shackles of indentured Newbridge modelling, oh no. The ‘Escort of the Year’, who’ll happily drop the name of his sponsor while humblebragging his master’s, gets a full cutlery collection, destined to live for six years in his parents attic.
1. Twitter
The live tweeting of the event, a mercilessly grudge match of petty jealousies and incredulous observations, has more thorns than a rose bush. More than 20,000 tweets with the hashtag #RoseOfTralee were sent out into the ether last night. Expect more tonight. It is, for mean people prone to bitchiness, something wonderful.
Morto for everyone involved in that little anecdote. Including the person telling it #roseoftralee
— Anne-Marie (@thecailinrua) August 17, 2015
LOUTH ROSE ACQUITTED OF STRAIGHT UP MURDERING MONAGHAN ROSE. "In fairness..." says judge #roseoftralee
— amy o'connor (@amyohconnor) August 17, 2015
"My talent Daithí? It's listening to you talk and smiling. Tolerance is what I'm saying, Daithí. Super-human tolerance." #roseoftralee
— Mic Wright (@brokenbottleboy) August 17, 2015
The Rose of Tralee’s second and final show airs on RTÉ tonight at 8pm. The mean and envious tweets start at about 7.58pm.
