Rose of Tralee review: Yoga with dogs on national TV – where else would you get it?

Irish Times

2 days ago

This year marks the 66th anniversary of the first
Rose of Tralee
and the 29th birthday of the Father Ted Lovely Girls episode that so fondly and famously lampooned the pageant.
In other words, for more than a third of the competition's history, we, as a nation, have been knowingly giggling up our sleeves in the general direction of the Rose of Tralee – torn between cherishing it as a uniquely Irish curio and scoffing at it as a Miss Universe with an extra sod of turf chucked in the fire.
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Carl Mullan on being a Rose of Tralee escort: 'I swear to god it was the hardest work I have ever done'
]
To cheer or to cringe? It's a dilemma as old as time – or at least, as old as that first Rose in 1959. Without doubt there is a lot about the Rose of Tralee that requires tweaking – a punishing six-hour run time, for starters.
However, there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world, and for that there is a growing appreciation.
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In any event, the wider question as to whether the Rose of Tralee is a patriarchal embarrassment or a national treasure is not going to be answered over the two evenings of the 2025 final.
Instead, night one (RTÉ One, 8pm, Monday) is confirmation of business as usual across a gruelling three hours sprawling either side of the 9pm news.
Kerry Rose Laura Daly gets into the spirit of the Rose of Tralee International Festival on Monday.
Photograph: Domnick Walsh/Eye Focus
As ever, hosts
Dáithí Ó Sé
and
Kathryn Thomas
have negligible chemistry and aren't on stage together that much. However, they do a good job in not condescending to the contestants – those grim
Gay Byrne
years have never felt further away – while the Roses themselves are the familiar collection of warm, likable over-achievers from home and abroad.
There are lots of traditional party pieces. Meath Rose Ella Bannon performs an Irish dance – but only after a brief moment of panic when Thomas struggles to undo a knot in the outer layer of Bannon's dress. Wexford Rose Cliona O'Leary sings Boulavogue, while the New Zealand representative Ciara Jo Hanlon, in traditional Maori dress and originally from Galway, negotiates She Moves Through the Fair.
As the night goes on, these staples of the contest grow ever wackier. There is a bagpipe malfunction. A Rose receives a lifetime membership gold card to a popular Dublin nightclub. Yoga with dogs is performed on national television – a sentence you will only write when discussing the Rose of Tralee.
The biggest change is the replacement of Will Leahy as MC with breakfast radio host and RTÉ's answer to Bilbo Baggins,
Carl Mullan
.
Leahy says he is stepping down after 20 years, and while the chirruping Mullan is a bit much this late in the evening, he acquits himself adequately. If only he weren't so cheery. Give him a few years and he'll be as miserable as the rest of us.
New Zealand Rose Ciara Jo Hanlon wears traditional Maori dress on stage at the Rose of Tralee International Festival on Monday.
Photograph: Domnick Walsh/Eye Focus
If something is missing, it is tension. As per its unofficial billing as Ireland's Lovely Girls contest, everyone is sweet and pleasant and there is not a hint of cut-throat rivalry. That's a good thing on balance – but it does make for ever-so-slightly plodding TV.
Some 66 years in, the Rose of Tralee is neither controversial nor toe-curling – but instead a beige national treasure jigging its way into the wee hours, with a bright smile but a slight blankness behind the eyes. It could do with a shot of adrenaline – or, at the least, a trimmer run-time.
The second half of Rose of Tralee is on from 9.35pm on RTÉ One on Tuesday