Tag Archives: Rose of Tralee

BvzB-FuIQAAuJxz

‘Twas a different story on Monday night…

Rose of Tralee: I’m gay (Aoife Bannon, Irish Sun) [behind paywall]

H/t: Ronan McGreevy

Screen Shot 2014-08-20 at 03.41.30 Maria Walsh, Rose of Tralee 2014

Philadelphia Rose Maria Walsh was last night crowned as the 2014 Rose of Tralee.

You may recognise her…

Cue-the-donkeys-for-web_2

Maria appeared in the Irish Times Weekend Magazine in January this year where Deirdre McQuillan wrote about the locations expert Nigel Swann:

Recently, he has taken on a co-producer, Maria Walsh, an Irish American who was born in Boston but returned to Shrule, Co Mayo, with her Irish parents when she was seven. After graduating in journalism from Griffith College, Walsh moved to New York and worked as a producer with Anthropologie, where she met and worked with Swann.

It features a photo of Mr Swann and Ms Walsh in a house in Henrietta St, Dublin taken by photographer Perry Ogden. In the accompanying blog it says:

Here is a photograph that Perry took of Nigel with Maria Walsh, who we had worked with at Anthropologie and has moved home to Ireland and is now working with Nigel. A great team! So now we have a man and a woman ( ha ha ) for all our production in Ireland, and they also handle production and locations all over Europe and are amazing to work with, so check them out!

No mention of the above when the Philadelphia Rose was interviewed by Daithí Ó Sé.

Anyone?

Watch here (scroll to the 1 hour mark).

Philadephia rose wins Rose of Tralee 2014 (RTÉ News)

Screen Shot 2014-08-11 at 10.28.47

Rose of Tralee host Daithí Ó Sé with some of the roses in 2013

From the Rose of Tralee website:

People sometimes ask if The Rose of Tralee Festival is a beauty pageant. The Rose of Tralee Festival is an event that celebrates many different things. We received these words from one of our Roses that eloquently describes how the Roses feel about their experience:

“The Roses are actually only one part of the festival. The festival is a week of events (most of which we weren’t even at!) that brings people to Kerry to celebrate their Irish heritage and culture. Yes, the TV nights look very beauty pageant-like and there are all sorts of corny conversations and performances (mine included) but again, that is only one part of the festival and it’s the part that most of Ireland knows about.

RTÉ puts on two nights of entertainment which they hope will trend on Twitter and create conversation. Like anything on television, you don’t have to watch it but in no way do I think it is damaging to the feminist movement or promoting superficiality.

One commentator asked why unattractive, unemployed women can’t enter and beside the fact that they can, I think the festival is about celebrating women who raise the bar and are confident, hardworking, intelligent role models. It’s a double standard and patronising to ask women to lower the bar to be more inclusive when the rest of the world celebrates excellence. I can’t remember the last ‘average’ athlete that made it to the Olympics and was on the telly.”

Festival History (Rose of Tralee)

Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

Thanks Bingo Slimz