You may wonder why I am thumbing my way through the list of finalists in next week's Rose of Tralee contest and then gently rocking back and forth with disappointment at the realisation that for the umpteenth time, Galway will not have its worthy representative taking part in the national televised final.
With the birds falling out of the trees with hunger and the dogs in the street barking their misfortune out for all to hear, you might think that I should have more to worry about than that, but alas, there is a bigger picture, about which I will go on to explain.
While it is disappointing that
the current Galway
Rose Anna De
Paor, a fantastic representative, will not be in Kerry, her exclusion may be the cause of more misery for thousands of us over the coming month than we may think.
You see, Galway needs a winning Rose of Tralee to break a GAA duck. And with the hurlers back in Croker on the second Sunday in September, we need all the duck-breaking roses we can fit in the van. Back in 1980, when Galway was searching that elusive hurling triumph on that September afternoon, just weeks beforehand, Galway had won its very first Rose of Tralee title.
And so when Roscommon woman and Galway Rose Sheila Lawlor (then Sheila O'Hanrahan ) won that accolade and had the pale moon is rising serenaded to her by some Kingdom crooner, it was the lucky omen that inspired the hurlers to that triumph over Limerick in Croke Park. And there she was in the stand when Joe Connolly with that stirring speech and Joe McDonagh with that stirring song, stirred themselves into Galway immortality.
The monkey off their backs, Galway went on to be kingpins of hurling for that decade, their players became household names, the only disappointment being that none of the three triumphs in that solitary decade has been replicated since.
A similar malaise befell the Galway footballers. Since their glory days of the 1960s, unbroken ducks had been sculpted through days of missed penalties and humiliating defeats secured despite numerical superiority.
And so it was to Tralee that we looked for salvation that summer of 1998. That year the judges had picked a good rose to represent Galway — Mayo woman Luzveminda O'Sullivan — her father a Kerryman and her late mother a Filipina — wowed the Tralee audiences and took the Rose of Tralee title back to Galway.
And so it was to be three weeks later, when she was in the VIP seats as a young man from Corofin named Silke was mounting those steps in Croke Park to be the first Galwayman to get his hands on Sam in 32 years. Another duck broken and another one achieved when the Rose of Tralee wore a sash with the word Galway on it.
So now you see where I’m coming from...Galway needs to get its Rose back in the national final.
The Galway Rose pageant run here by Patsy Conway for more than 30 years was one of the most successful in the country, with its standing guaranteeing it an automatic place in the Tralee final. It was a two or three day event held here in the city and was one of the social highlights of the year. Patsy's catchphrase, 'musha, they're all lovely girls" later went on to be taken and used in Father Ted, for which he receives copious royalties everytime it is aired.
However, since the pageant was restructured a decade ago and Patsy stepped back, a Galway Rose has not made it through to the national finals in Tralee, havign to be content instead of being Championship rather than Premiership Lovely Girls.
So when Anthony Cunningham gets the lads together next week and they know whether it is the might of Tipperary or Kilkenny they face in the September 9 decider, he will instil into them the need to be even bigger, faster, stronger because they won’t have a Rose in the stand willing them on...but hey, maybe that’s just another duck to be smashed to smithereens.
