Which one of you out there doesn’t enjoy a lovely girls competition? Well apart from the extreme feminist, I’d think everyone does. And most lovely of all the lovely girls competitions? Well surely that has to be the Rose of Tralee.
This weekend, in the Athlone Springs Hotel, 17 of the county’s loveliest girls (aged 18 to 27 ) will be vying to become the Westmeath Rose, in a mannerly way of course. Because, if nothing else, the Rose of Tralee is a mannerly, lovely girl, who encompasses everything that is lovely about Irish girls.
What started out as a competition among the women of Tralee has now become an international affair that allows any woman with Irish ancestry to compete. Based on the song ‘The Rose of Tralee’, judges search for a girl who fits the lyrics, is “lovely and fair”. Surely one of our Westmeath contestants holds true to these words!
It’s been a couple of years since we’ve sent a Westmeath Rose through to the final in Tralee, with many only getting as far as the provincial final. But I’ve a good feeling that this weekend will see a budding Rose of Tralee emerge from the selection process. There’re plenty of lovely girls across the county, and I think if the judges can get their heads together we could have a winner. We’ve never won the Rose of Tralee; I think this could be the boost we need. Who knows, if tourists know we’re a good breeding ground for lovely girls, the whole thing could boost our local economy.
Now I know some of you out there feel a lovely girls competition is a bit cringy, and perhaps feel that these girls are selling themselves short. After all they’re trying to win a beauty competition; they don’t even ask for a talent any more. One would hope this is in order to open up the competition to those who didn’t learn how to Irish dance as a child. If nothing else, the Rose of Tralee competition gives the female viewers lovely gúnas to look at, and hit-or-miss fake tan and make-up.
But what would be especially lovely, would be to see a nice girl from Westmeath being crowned the loveliest of them all, something that hasn’t happened yet.
This competition is about more than ill-fitting super-shiny dresses, over hair-sprayed hair, and men in monkey suits. This is about lovely girls, all smiling, lovely, and fair, not forgetting the truth in their eyes, and their beauty. Ah I’m sure you know the rest of the lyrics.
Anyway, the point here is that we have some lovely girls here in Westmeath; you can head to the Athlone Springs on Saturday night at 7.30pm to see them if you like.
Go on, celebrate our lovely girls!
