Rose Parade. Night. | Music | 00:00 |
| JANE HUTCHEON: Festival time in Tralee comes around each year as certainly as Christmas and Easter. Young and old cram streets for a glimpse of the star attractions. | 00:09 |
‘Roses' on float waving to crowd | They are known as ‘Roses' and they represent Irish communities from all over the world. | 00:21 |
| RYAN TUBRIDY: They are nice girls next door you know. You know, there's that feel to it. They are the kind of girl that you know Mammies would love their sons to meet. You know it's that, | 00:28 |
Ryan | it's wholesome that's the word I'd use it's very wholesome. | 00:37 |
‘Roses' on float waving to crowd | MARTINA DEVLIN: It's just hokey, you know. | 00:41 |
Martina. Super: | And I think that it's not something you want on your CV. It's not empowering to win the Rose of Tralee. I think it's just a bit embarrassing, really. | 00:46 |
‘Roses' on float waving to crowd | JANE HUTCHEON: They may look like beauty queens, but the Roses say they're much more. KATHRYN FEENEY: The little girls look up at them and they are not just | 00:56 |
Kathryn | a pretty face. They're, some people that have, they may have you know university degrees. This year we have dentists, we have police officers, we have teachers, nurses, I mean there's women coming from all walks of life, from all around the world, and that's another nice part. | 01:07 |
Photos. Former ‘Roses' in newspaper | JANE HUTCHEON: Padraig Kenelly is the founder of the local newspaper Kerry's Eye. He recalls that the festival was started back when Tralee was a dying town. PADRAIG KENELLY: There was huge emigration here in the ‘50s, | 01:25 |
| 1951 on and the country was being denuded. It was a very black outlook, emigration was the main feature. This was to capitalise on the people who had gone to Australia, who had gone to America and Britain and have something to bring them all back and it was highly successful. | 01:40 |
‘Roses' greeting fans and each other | JANE HUTCHEON: This year, thirty-one girls are vying for the title. | 02:03 |
| After touring Ireland they now have just a week to impress the judges with qualities attributed to the original Rose of Tralee. | 02:14 |
| CONTESTANT: Hello, how are you. Where am I going? | 02:24 |
| PHOTOGRAPHER: Come on girls, yeah. Just salute girls, just salute. |
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‘Roses' on navy boat | JANE HUTCHEON: The girls are encouraged to be friendly and natural but the judges, who observe them on every official outing, are looking for virtues that may not be immediately obvious. SEAN KELLY: It's not a beauty contest. | 02:30 |
Kelly. Super: | It's about what I call internal beauty and external beauty and I would see it as a contest to find goodness, real goodness in people. | 02:44 |
‘Roses' at function | JANE HUTCHEON: There's a Shakespearian actor from Philadelphia, a Dubai real-estate agent, and accomplished dancers like Lisa Marie Berry. She's from a tough neighbourhood in County Wicklow, just outside Dublin. | 02:55 |
Lisa Marie | LISA MARIE BERRY: We're trying to rejuvenate the reputation of the area I live in ‘cos it hasn't really got a good name because crime, high unemployment etcetera. So obviously coming from an area like that, and being here, and if I won the Rose I could promote the kind of, like, you're living proof that just because you come from a lower class background, that you can succeed. | 03:10 |
Orla with partner | JANE HUTCHEON: Orla Neff from Perth is a police officer. | 03:29 |
| JANE HUTCHEON: Is it a beauty contest? |
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Orla | ORLA NEFF : No way! And somebody egged one of the floats the other night. Like, I think that's just disgraceful. | 03:34 |
Band plays in pub | For me, it has brought my family back to Ireland and we haven't been back here for ten years. | 03:41 |
Dublin shots | Music | 03:48 |
| JANE HUTCHEON: Three hundred kilometres away in sophisticated Dublin, not everyone zealously anticipates Rose of Tralee time. | 03:55 |
| JANE HUTCHEON: They don't do | 04:05 |
Martina. Super: | bikinis in Rose of Tralee, do they? MARTINA DEVLIN: No they don't do bikinis, they don't in fairness. But there's still an aspect to it which is judging women on their appearance. Now there are other aspects, you'd have to ask them what exactly they are. It seems to be all round good egginess from I can see, being a lovely girl and that sort of thing. | 04:05 |
Famine statues | JANE HUTCHEON: What bothers Martina Devlin is that the contest is routed in an era where times were desperate and woman weren't particularly liberated. MARTINA DEVLIN: And I don't think | 04:24 |
| it's very representative of Irish woman today. I think it conjures up an image of Ireland where women were happy to put on a pinny and bake scones with the children running around their feet. | 04:37 |
Ryan | RYAN TUBRIDY: You can have cappuccinos and Irish dancing at the same time. You can have lovely girls and super-models at the same time. In other words. There's room for everything. | 04:51 |
Ryan in radio studio | JANE HUTCHEON: Ryan Tubridy is one of Ireland's top broadcasters and a former host of the Rose of Tralee show. Though he admits the festival is a bit old fashioned, it still has its place. RYAN TUBRIDY: And I think it's an element of | 05:10 |
Ryan. Super: | that new found confidence, if you like, economically, politically that you can say, yes, we have sky-scrapers emerging from the dust and yes, we have this other little competition, which is what it, it's a little competition. | 05:25 |
Girls with book | YOUNG GIRL: You could give them this book and ask them to sign their name on top of it. GIRL 2: Do ya think? YOUNG GIRL: Yeah, you could do that.. | 05:38 |
Young girls approach ‘Roses' at library | JANE HUTCHEON: For some little girls the lure of the Rose is beyond debate. | 05:44 |
| At the county library the Roses have come to open an exhibition; a pink army blitzes them for autographs. Some have spent hours lovingly preparing scrapbooks. | 05:52 |
Carmel and Mary | Also here are Carmel Cantillon and Mary Lavelle. | 06:06 |
| And do you watch the televised program on the Monday and Tuesday? | 06:12 |
| CARMEL CANTILLON: We all do. We might pretend we don't , but we all do! | 06:15 |
| MARY LAVELLE: Our husbands don't, no. Our husbands won't watch it, but we just have to be uninterrupted. | 06:18 |
| CARMEL CANTILLON: We pretend we don't care, but we watch it, don't believe that, we all watch it. | 06:24 |
| MARY LAVELLE: We all watch it. Yeah we do. | 06:29 |
‘Roses' arrive at Town Hall reception | JANE HUTCHEON: As the festival highpoint approaches, Tralee Mayor Miriam McGillicuddy gushes over the Roses. They're treated like royalty wherever they go. MAYOR MIRIAM MCGILLICUDDY: You're multi-tasking roses | 06:33 |
Miriam addresses ‘Roses' | taking things to a new level as you show us how to sing, dance, look fabulous, obtain qualifications with ease, and still have a sense of your place of where you come from and your heritage. | 06:46 |
‘Roses' in church | JANE HUTCHEON: The Roses are still encouraged to attend mass in hats. | 07:05 |
| PRIEST: Something like the festival, a bit like religion will have its cynics too, and don't worry about that. Some will push the competition element and kind of present it as if that were the only thing. Girls, all of you, are winners. | 07:10 |
| JANE HUTCHEON: It's old fashioned, it's old guard not exactly the image of the new modern Ireland. Whatever image the festival conjures | 07:26 |
People watch broadcast | up, many Irish viewers only know it as a marathon TV show. Six long hours over two nights. | 07:35 |
Fireworks/ ‘Roses' with partners | In the age of Paris Hilton and other starlets, where fame seems to come all too suddenly and often without much reason, the people of Tralee salute their festival. It doesn't please everyone - but it seems all good innocent fun, and a way of re-connecting with the Irish Diaspora. | 07:46 |
Credits: | Reporter: Jane Hutcheon Camera: Michael Cox Editor: Michael Cox Producer: Bronwen Reed | 08:08 |