I'm off to Tralee, Co. Kerry this evening for the annual Rose of Tralee festival. Now in it's 47th year, the festival continues to go from strength to strength, thanks to the input of generous sponsors, such as Newbridge Silverware.
For those of you not familiar with the Rose of Tralee, let me explain. The main attraction of the festival is choosing and crowning a Rose of Tralee. Essentially a beauty contest, with more onus on the personality, it attracts entries from all over the world and is broadcast on national television. This year's contest is being presented by Ray D'Arcy.
The ever popular Rose Ball will take place on Friday night in the beautiful Brandon Hotel. This black tie gala is many people's opportunity to see the Roses for the first time, before their debut at the parades over the following days.
The weekend always attracts many familiar faces and last year, for example, I bumped into top celebrity magician Keith Barry, TV presenters Alan Hughes and Ryan Tubridy, PR guru Joanne Byrne, former gossip columnist turned singer Jason O'Callaghan, media consultant Breda Brown and style queen Celia Holman - Lee.
This year's judges are newscaster Sharon Nà Bheoláin, Oonagh Doyle of Newbridge Silverware, Ken Barry of Smart Telecom, former International Rose Larna Canoy - Lackner and Terry O'Brien, Lord Mayor of Tralee.
The contest takes place on Monday and Tuesday (22 & 23) and will be broadcast on RTE 1 at 8pm, when we will see last year's Rose Orla O'Shea hand over the title. You can click here to see all the girls who will be smiling it out for that coveted Newbridge Silverware tiara.
It's a veritable institution here in Ireland. You'd have to see it to believe it.
Question from Rose of Tralee 2004: Whose partner got trashed in the VIP area of Fabric nightclub and stripped off on the dance floor? After a warning from security the party animal had no choice but tone it down. Not exactly 'model' behavior!
