Final Word: A rose by any other name

By Paul Moore

What are we to make of the ‘Rose of Tralee’ in the 21st century? Last week virtually every programme on RTÉ, from music shows to the main news, was sharing stories of the Roses – who did what, who was interesting and, most importantly, who might win.

It seemed a weird balance of concerns where the Rose of Tralee was having equal billing with the Ukraine and Palestine. Then again perhaps that is not surprising.

When the world appears to be imploding on a daily basis it seems comforting to be able to concentrate on something which seems to be ‘homely’, about places and our connections to them, about apparently innocent times when Gaybo brought the best out of young women about to step into the world and make their mark.

The pull of nostalgia is never stronger than when everything else is dystopian and hopeless. At least we can pretend to have some impact, some influence, on our small part of the world.

Except it is sadly not that simple. The Rose of Tralee has turned into a multi-million euro global circus and the main focus of the festival (competition?) is to draw both virtual and real tourists to that part of the country. The shortest of glances at any of the coverage indicates that many, if not all, of the women involved are sophisticated public persona; trained, prepared and groomed, literally so, for this very moment.

Bearing in mind that there is no ‘Thorn of Tralee’ competition for men it has to be suggested that this is another example of the exploitation of the female at a time when, even to suggest such a thing would leave you ostracised in most polite company. I cannot imagine anyone rocking up to the door of RTÉ if the Rose did not already exist and proposing that such a programme be set up.

There would be RTE executives throwing themselves off the top of the buildings at Montrose.

The point is, if all the sentiment and emotional nostalgia is stripped away, this is in essence a beauty contest with benefits, those being that the women are offered an opportunity to at least show they have intelligence and free will. Ultimately though, as in all previous holiday camps, they will be judged, this year by two women and two men.

If any of this sounds a tad po-faced it comes from a place of trauma. One of the worst experiences of my life was being self-important enough to agree to compère a local version of the Rose competition. To alleviate any embarrassment for either they or me I will not name the place but after an all day festival the crowd for said Rose competition was on the large side. By the time the event kicked off said crowd was also somewhat on the inebriated side. This could have been fun except I had to interview the competitors and ask them some meaningful questions designed to allow them to exhibit their wit and intelligence. Unfortunately they were so nervous, not helped by the ribaldry coming from the floor, that each ended up telling me the same thing, that they wanted to work with children or be a beautician, their favourite holiday was a week in Benidorm and their favourite film star was Tom Cruise.

Literally everyone had the same aspirations. Eventually the insults from the floor became so invidious that the interviews were abandoned leaving none of us with any understanding of how the winner was selected.

As it was I seemed to be the only person who went home with a prize, a Belleek vase with the name of the event on it. It hides in a cupboard in case I see it and revert into my traumatised state.

Perhaps ultimately we have no need for such competitions any more because many, many women are running their own competition.

It is called influencing and often brings winnings without ever having to show any intelligence at all.