Ireland's Next Top Model shares next heartfelt venture after world competition
Kristine Subrovska has just returned from Egypt where she competed in The World's Next Top Model, ranking in the top five in the global competition. The televised pageant was won by Miss Colombia.
Kristine, who has a degree in Business and Law, also achieved the highest placement ever for an Irish contestant in the global competition's 30-year history, outperforming hundreds of contestants from across the globe.
Speaking about the beauty pageant, she said: "Representing Ireland in Egypt to a sold-out crowd was unforgettable —it was a privilege."
But it's not just the catwalk where Kristine is hoping to make waves.
Long before the ground-breaking win, she became a vocal advocate for children's rights and social reform.
Working closely with FashionHouse Ireland, she played a key role in shaping the upcoming Dublin Fashion Week and appeared on a series of motivational podcasts giving a platform to emerging creatives and unheard voices.
Her advocacy sharpened in response to growing concerns about Tusla, Ireland's Child and Family Agency. Recent HIQA reports have flagged serious failings—staffing gaps, delays in child protection assessments and children left without assigned social workers.
"This goes beyond numbers," Kristine said. "These are real children in real danger. No child in Ireland should be left without care or protection. I won't stay silent when I can help shine a light on this crisis."
She's now collaborating with charities, welfare advocates and policymakers to push for urgent reform in child protection services.
"What matters now is using this platform to drive change. Irish models can be more than faces—we can be forces for good," she added.
With Kristine back on home soil, momentum is already building for the 2026 edition of Ireland's Next Top Model.
Applications are flooding in, and pageant director Michael Martin Byrne has confirmed a revamped format, including regional heats and a grand finale in Dublin.
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Sunday World
an hour ago
- Sunday World
Summer of music in full flow as 30,000 revellers make pilgrimage to All Together Now 2025
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RTÉ News
an hour ago
- RTÉ News
Live, Forever: Why bands are reuniting early and often
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There's been absolutely no suggestion that they're going to go back into the studio, and it's fair to say that the fans don't care about that. All they want is for the band to finish the tour that they've announced – and ideally add a few more dates on down the line. Now maybe that's because the latter part of Oasis' back catalogue wasn't exactly their best work (those who disagree just need to look at the setlist for the reunion tour to see that Noel and Liam feel the same). However the fact that there's little demand for new music also points to some of the other reasons why these kinds of reunion tours are in such strong demand at the moment. Specifically in the case of Oasis, there's obviously a supply and demand factor. People haven't been able to see them play live together in at least 16 years, so there's a massive pent up demand. 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Our smartphones are also, constantly generating photo albums of things we did just a few years ago – which encourages us to get wistful about our younger days which – in turn – makes us pine for the music we listened to at the time. At the same time that instant access to older content has made it much easier for younger people to discover and create a love for music that they were maybe a little bit too young for the first time around. There will no doubt be plenty of people in their late teens and early 20s at the Oasis concerts this month – alongside those who were grown-ups when they first heard Wonderwall. (In fact the demand for tickets from newer fans did spark a brief, nasty debate online which saw some older fans argue that they deserved tickets more than the newcomers (and, particularly, the younger women who wanted to go). So just how lucrative are these kinds of reunion tours? Well it obviously all depends – and there are a lot of factors at play. 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Irish Independent
3 hours ago
- Irish Independent
CMAT at All Together Now: Singer performs politically charged single name-checking ‘All the Berties'
The song is particularly poignant given its political context: 'it's about the financial crash and the fallout the country is still feeling the marks of today. 'I don't think of myself as a political songwriter, ' Thompson said to the thousands of festival attendees gathered in front of the main stage, but there are things the artist stands for, and she's not afraid to champion them. On the 'agenda' for the evening: trans rights (with a t-shirt on sale that will have its proceeds donated to Teni) and 'as always, Free Palestine' as she led the crowd into 'free free Palestine' chants. But the debut of Euro-Country is no afterthought. The performance came on the same day that Bertie Ahern emerged as the preferred Fianna Fáil candidate in the presidential election in November. The Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll showed 12pc of people believe that the former Taoiseach should be a contender to replace Michael D Higgins in the Áras. 'I'm so sorry that this has struck a chord with so many of you,' the Dunboyne native said to a heaving main stage crowd. She launched into the song, which includes lyrics that reference the former Taoiseach: 'All the big boys/ All the Berties/ All the envelopes, yeah they hurt me/I was 12 when the das started killing themselves all around me.' There were more cases of suicide during the bust period, according to the National Suicide Research Foundation, who cite 476 more male suicides than had there not been a recession. Thompson also makes a call back to the lack of public infrastructure and perpetual struggle with access to housing among those in their twenties and thirties: 'And it was normal/Building houses/They stay empty even now.' 'Nobody I grew up with basically lives here anymore, everyone has had to emigrate. Nobody can afford to live here, everybody is leaving home. And everyone who is left behind is left with less and less public services, healthcare and security in everything that you need to live a life not in danger,' said Thompson. 'I believe this is directly the fault of the Irish government that we had 20 - 25 years ago. And I can't explain to you the politic [sic] of what happened back then, I can only explain to you my memories of growing up as a kid during the crash that we all experienced, and it was a horrible, horrible time for the entire country.' 'I believe that people in their 20s and 30s have been really adversely affected by it. And the personal, emotional effects of it are something that I am interested in as a songwriter, because I think that we can learn from it.' 'All of that is to say, we've never performed this song live before, and I wanted to debut it here because I thought it was important.' When all was said and done, there was one more track to enjoy. 'I was wondering if after all that trauma you wouldn't mind doing me one more favour' she quipped, as she introduced Stay For Something, and gave the audience a melody to sing back. The crowd dutifully channelled a shared grief into a stirring rendition before lights out.
