"Trans women in the Rose of Tralee; I just can't wait to get the first trans woman up on stage because it's going to be great fun.” -
Dáithí Ó Séhost of the Rose of Tralee pageant.
"This year the Irish Pageant Rose of Tralee allows Men who Identify as women to compete.
So what do you get for winning Rose of Tralee?
In 2018 the top prize included a brand new KIA from the local car showroom, a week’s holiday in County Kerry and a not to be sniffed at World Travel Prize worth €25,000.
Here’s some background to the pageant plucked from the ‘Culture trip’ home page -
About the Rose of Tralee
“The ‘Roses’ then compete in a contest that organisers go to great lengths to assure us isn’t a beauty pageant (they call it a ‘celebration of women’), but it has many similarities, with almost all the women being young and conventionally attractive. The contest also has ‘escorts’ for the Roses. It’s a bit of a throwback, though these days it comes with an almighty party attached. The key moments are shown on Irish national television.”
“What are the criteria for competing and winning?
The entrance criteria has been somewhat controversial. Women only qualify to be a Rose between the ages of 18 and 28. They must not, and must never have been married, and until recently, couldn’t be unmarried mothers, either. The contest has been going for 55 years, and theoretically, the winner is judged by the woman who most closely matches the description of ‘Mary’ in the old ballad ‘The Rose of Tralee’. “
My Mother Said
My mother had some great sayings. All enhanced through repetition. Whenever I did something smart she’d say ‘You’re not just a pretty face.’ If we picked apart the looks of another girl it would be a firm ‘beauty is skin-deep’ and if we said a boy or a man was good looking out came another standard - ‘handsome is as handsome does.’ The last one flavoured with a drop of bitterness. So you could say I received a fair bit of homey indoctrination on not judging by appearances.
My mother’s hair was short. She didn’t wear make-up. I remember a tragic home perm my aunt persuaded her into. Wavy slightly auburn hair turned to a singed frizz. Took months to grow out. No perms from then on. Her bespoke curling routine amounted to twisting a wet tendril around an index finger, then fixing it tightly with a hair grip.
She was a few inches taller than the average of her generation. Slim, not thin, with Small breasts and enviable Hollywood legs. She got the girl with best legs vote when she was in the army. Now I’d ask who gave them the right to judge. Which reminds me of another staple repeated over and over. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Clothes looked really good on her. She never wore heels but Flat, size seven brown shoes, always brown, in an era when size five was the average for women. She hated her big feet but they didn’t look disproportionate. She had the height for them. Her only make-up was a very old lipstick that she rarely used. She’d scrape the colour out with her little finger draw the murky pink across the lips and smack together noisily as a finale. If she was going out she’d ask to borrow one of my brown crayons, s00000he’d spit on it and highlight her brows. A quick look in the mirror on completion and out would come another regular saying. ‘I’ll pass with a push.’
Her style palate for clothes was brown to beige, Rarely a bright colour or any print. I loved it when she wore a white blouse but she was practical and all about the washing.
She loved perfume, though, and when I earned money from weekend jobs I’d buy it for her birthday. Once I bought her Madame Rochas. She declared it her favourite so it was Madame Rochas from then on.
“You’ll pass with a push” was her verdict on us girls as we got older and dressed up for a night out. Our looks were not a thing, (all female household - four sisters and mother divorced when we were very little) although when I was about thirteen I remember coming downstairs unexpectedly and catching her saying to my aunt, they huddled round the fire, that she was concerned as I was attracting too much attention from men. Pretty privilege they’d call it now. She was right to downplay appearances, though. It’s a good message for girls. Though not common. I recall a reality check when my friend’s mum remarked to my friend’s younger sister: “at least one of you girls has a pair of decent legs.” My friend looked crestfallen. All her sisters had decent legs as far as I could tell. My mother would never have compared us in that way.
It was only through this friend, my best friend, that I discovered there was such a thing as eyebrow tweezers. One day she turned up at school with her teen bushy eyebrows elegantly shaped. I asked how and she told me about tweezers. Her mother had a dressing table top full of all sorts of cosmetic goodies.
I asked her to bring the tweezers to school but she said she’d get into trouble. So I started plucking mine with my forefinger and thumb. Bald eyebrow patches were the result. I didn’t have bushy eyebrows in the first place but magazine models sported a thin line. The fashion. Eventually, I got my finger plucking off to a fine art. Once on holiday, a friend with a bit of a beard forgot to pluck before arriving at our glamorous beach on the Cote d’Azur. With no tweezers to hand, I was glad to oblige. She was very impressed by my precision plucking.
Rose of Tralee: ‘Why shouldn’t married and trans women be allowed to take part?’ – Contestants welcome more inclusive pageant
https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/television/rose-of-tralee-why-shouldnt-married-and-trans-women-be-allowed-to-take-part-contestants-welcome-more-inclusive-pageant-41909179.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Here’s the classic Lovely Girls Competition Clip from the Father Ted series.
Glinner Glinner Glinner!
The Song and the lyrics
Collection of Irish Song Lyrics
Rose Of Tralee (the)
Author: C. Mordaunt Spencer and Charles W. Glover
The pale moon was rising above the green mountain
the sun was declining beneath the blue sea
when I strayed with my love to the pure crystal fountain
that stands in the beautiful vale of Tralee
CHORUS
she was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer
but 'twas not her beauty alone that won me
Oh no was the truth in her eyes ever dawning
that made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee
The cool shades of evening their mantels were spreading
and Mary all smiling was listening to me
the moon thru the valley her pale rays were spreading
when I won the heart of the Rose of Tralee CHORUShttps://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2022/0211/1279246-rose-of-tralee-hopes-to-welcome-first-trans-woman/
John McCormack - The Rose of Tralee (1930)
How lovely.