OPINION: Must be back to school time if new Rose of Tralee has just been crowned
YES, it's that time of year again, when she who is lovely and fair takes over our TV screens as children and many of their teachers feel their hearts freeze as they realise there are only days now until it’s back-to-school time and those hazy crazy days of summer are well done, dusted, gone and gone forever. Yes, autumn beckons towards winter with the year on the downhill and in decline, the circle about to turn as the world goes round. And round.
You guessed it, it’s Rose of Tralee time and there probably wasn't a child washed or a dinner prepared as the 33 roses did their stuff on TV with Daithi the only thorn among the lot of them as Mna na h-Eireann stick like glue to the tele to see what the Roses were wearing and the men of Ireland studying the form… but not keenly. (‘Could give the wrong impression to `she-who-must-be-obeyed’!).
The Rose of Tralee might as well be renamed `the last rose of summer’ with its reminder of the end of things.
As Thomas Moore wrote at Jenkinstown Castle, Kilkenny, in 1805 -
Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes
Or give sigh for sigh!
The Rose of Tralee is believed to have been written many decades later, in the early 1840s, by William Pembroke Mulchinock, a wealthy Tralee Protestant, out of his love for Mary O'Connor, a poor Catholic daughter of a Tralee cobbler and dairymaid mother.
There might even be some truth in it too, but surely there’s nothing like a tragic love story to get the blood flowing in either gender, so we might as well let it be.
Mary O’Connor (unrelated to my married sister of the same name!) lived on Tralee’s Brogue Lane (I kid you not) in a thatched cabin with her parents, sisters Brigid and Ellen and younger brother Willie. Mary was lovely and fair with the truth in her eyes ever dawning. (Now where did I hear that before?)
Anyhow, when Mary was 17 she got a job as a kitchen maid with the Mulchinocks at their grand (as in Grande, not as in `sure tis grand’) house in Tralee called West Villa. (No, it had nothing to do with Aston Villa which, if you remember correctly, is a football team. Sigh!)
She was soon spotted there by one of the young men of the house, William Mulchinock, a bit of a useless fecker who fancied himself as a writer (God help us!). As soon as he saw Mary he was gone, smitten, away with the fairies (the traditional kind!).
They started walking out together, to use that quaint phrase, and he fell further and further. Then the bloody moon got in on the act, pale as a ghost, and sure the poor devil didn’t stand a chance. This being a story of true love the path dared not run smooth and ruin the story with a happy ending before it had even rightly started.
To add spice, William’s parents did not approve of such a match – as if??! – and the wise Mary also realised they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a go of it with her having an address in a place called Brogue Lane. So, with the cruel practicality that can seize young women held in thrall by lovesick young men, Mary said `no’ when William asked her to marry him.
Using a word greatly favoured in all quarters today, William was `devastated’. He wrote her `The Rose of Tralee’ but, like a member of the DUP, she was just not for turning. Never! He, for his part, did not seek out a pure crystal fountain to end it all but got into a row the upshot of which was that he was charged with murder in an act of such gross injustice it beggars belief to this day, but where would this story be if he was not forced off the stage to Van Diemen’s land or some such far flung place. In his case it was India.
She, exiting stage left - through Cork - he fled to a war in India (as you do) and stayed away until the murder matter was cleared and he was declared innocent of all charges. So the way was clear for a triumphant return to Mary O’Connor and Tralee.
But it was 1849 with the Famine still killing all before it in Ireland. Mere pestilence wouldn’t keep him away however and he arrived in Tralee just in time for a funeral. You guessed it, Mary O’Connor had 'died of a fever and no one could save her..’ (Sorry, sorry. Wrong song!)
Yes, it was her funeral. His too. He was `devastated’ … again…, went off, married Number 2 love of his life, had kids, died in 1864 and is allegedly buried with Mary’s people – the perfect happy ending! – at Clogherbrien, out the Fenit road from Tralee. And you’d better believe it.
The Rose of Tralee Festival began almost 100 years later – they’re usually not that slow when it comes to a money-spinner in Kerry – and it has been a roaring success since the first Rose was crowned in 1959. That was Dublin Rose Alice O’Sullivan, still lovely and fair at an estimated age of 82.
Television has made a huge difference to its popularity with Dáithí Ó Sé presenting it since 2010. The God of Irish broadcasting Gay Byrne presented it for 17 years while another presenter was the King of British broadcasting (they don’t have a God over there) Terry Wogan. Then there were people such as Kathleen Watkins, Ray D'Arcy, Ryan Tubridy, Marty Whelan, Derek Davis. Look, if you haven’t presented the Rose of Tralee you’re nobody in broadcasting. Right!
The same might be said about reporters/journalists – if you haven’t covered the Rose of Tralee you’re not a real reporter/journalist. I am a real reporter/journalist, having done so a number of times, always lovely and fair too.
Probably my most memorable year there was in 1997 when it was broadcast from the Brandon Hotel for the first time as the Dome heaved and lurched above its 2,500 empty seats in Force 9 winds. Bliss was it to be still alive at that hour.
The pale moon was nowhere to be seen in Tralee those nights. The sun hadn't shone for days and it was so wet you could have strayed with your love into any pure crystal fountain and you’d have come out no less soaked.
As Siamsa dancers rehearsed their interval act in the Dome, light fittings suspended from the aluminium supports danced to the music as well while the wind rolled in waves through the deep blue canvas above. It was so bad the second night was postponed for 24 hours. `The Dome is dead’, we were told, but it was a case of `long live the Dome’, which has reigned supreme since.
Still, when the 1997 Rose of Tralee - Sinead Lonergan, representing France - was finally crowned after midnight on that `just-about-made-it' night there were the same cheers and tears as in any other year. The same "It's unbelievable" response from the winner; the same audience reaction, "I didn't pick her myself, but she is lovely."
The presenter that year was Marty Whelan, all of which was 25 years before Dubliner Phil O’Kelly had Marty’s visage tattooed on his thigh after he lost a bet. True fame, at last.