Laois rose crowned 2025 Rose of Tralee
The winner was crowned on the second selection night on Tuesday at the Kerry Sports Academy at MTU.
As well as being the 66th rose, the XX-year-old XXXX is the Xth rose from XXXX to win the title in the competition's 67-year history.
The result was delivered on stage by the show's CEO Anthony O'Gara.
It came at the end of two selection nights of the Rose of Tralee International Festival which were aired live on RTÉ from the Kerry Sports Academy at the Munster Technological University (MTU).
This year's winner succeeds the 2024 Rose of Tralee Keely O'Grady.
In her farewell message, the former New Zealand rose described her past year as 'the most exciting ride of my life' and said the festival itself is all about 'celebrating the full spectrum of what it means to be a real modern woman'.
She advised her successor to 'say yes to everything, be unapologetically you, laugh laud, sing louder'.
She also said 'the magic is in the sisterhood'.
More than a million of viewers are expected to have tuned in over Monday and Tuesday night, with the last night usually getting more than 500,000 viewers on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player.
The four-person judging panel that picked this year's Rose of Tralee were former Rose of Tralee Clare Kambamettu, RTÉ's Nuala Carey, fashion designer Don O'Neill and Aisling Murphy of sponsor Murphy's New Homes.
Earlier in the evening, co-presenter Dáithí Ó Sé brought out a surprise birthday cake for Limerick Rose Leah McMahon's daughter Ella, who was eight.
She had attended the festival but had not seen as much of her mother due to the 29-year-old's busy schedule and the audience in the MTU venue sang Happy Birthday to her in what was one of the highlights of the evening.
Asked what the contest means by co-presenter Kathryn Thomas, Leah later described it as a celebration of 'a sense of empowerment and fulfilment'.
The financial planner added: 'We need festivals to celebrate women. We are not asking to be more, we are just asking to be on the same level.' Among those to feature in this year's contest were 32 roses in total, who included four mothers, a cancer survivor, a stroke survivor, a diplomat, a number of academics and financial consultants.
As well as being crowned this year's rose, this year's rose also wins a world travel prize valued at €25,000 and gets the use of a €40,000 Kia Niro Plug-in hybrid for the year.
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