A rose by any other name

On the face of it, the Mary from Dungloe pageant would seem to resemble its better-known Kerry counterpart the Rose of Tralee, but in fact the long-running Co Donegal festival is in a class all its own – not least for its charm and the absolute hilarity of it all

‘WE-E-ELL…. NO. I wasn’t worried about winning. The way I see it is, if I win I win and if I lose I lose”.

A lesson for us all, surely, from a winner in Dungloe, whose first regal duty was to turn up for 11am Sunday Mass in her glittering tiara.

Lara O’Donnell, aged eight – this year’s Little Miss Mary from Dungloe – cut an assured dash beside the 14 big, anxious Marys, sitting in reserved pews up front of the most cacophonous Mass in Christendom.

This is different. When did you last see 14 giddy young ones behaving like convent novices of a Sunday morning? Or a priest called Fr Nigel introduce a series of  “beautiful young ladies” individually from the altar? The Dungloe Mary did a reading in vertiginous pink heels. Another half-dozen teetered up to read the prayers of the faithful. The rest piously delivered the Offertory gifts. The Down Mary even administered communion. “Jaze, that’s uppin’ the ante a bit”, muttered someone, possibly the daddy of AN Other Mary.

Later, they distributed roses to random, little, saucer-eyed girls around the church. “It’s the first chance the children get to see the Marys – it’s probably why it’s such a noisy Mass,”, said “Mary Godmother”, Carol Kiernan ruefully, in the tone of a woman who’s been herding cats for a week.

An hour later, they’re all seated decorously in the back of a big artic lorry, amid classic cars, backfiring little Honda bikes and marching bands, interspersed with two

big anti-BP floats, one featuring an exceedingly sooty Obama hosing down a fire. On the band stage, the lads smoke rollies between rousing renditions of Bad Moon Risin'and I Useta Love Her, while the crowd ducks under awnings to avoid the quasi-monsoon.

The bright boys of Meenacross Agricultural Show stand out with a lorry load of saddlers, hay-makers and milkers (pulling away on rubber udders) and a tribe of rampant

injuns on horseback, the half-naked chief emitting war-like whoops followed by several damp little squaws on ponies and one small dog.

In the meantime, over lunch in Ann and Pat Nora Gallagher’s house on the seashore, Pat Nora (it’s complicated; he was one of five Pats from the one road) and Joe and Mary Joyce recall the halcyon days of a festival once known as the Glasgow Fair, for homecoming emigrants, and built around the song based on a tragic 5ft 9inch, 19th century blonde who pined away in New Zealand. There were two hotels back then, 24 Marys, a marquee and a dome, with blue-chip sponsors and budgets of more than a quarter-of-a-million and the likes of Phil Coulter and the American Drifters cramming Main St.

Then folk developed continental tastes and discovered sunny two-week holidays that cost less than a rain-sodden week at home. Sponsors faded away and the festival dwindled sadly.

Now Ann and Pat Nora’s 27-year-old daughter, Tricia, an events manager, has taken up the challenge, with precisely no hotels and a budget less than half of what her father had 18 years ago — much of it supplied by Randox Laboratories. The seven pubs are obviously the huge beneficiaries (some had to close the doors at 10.30pm last week), but the visitors’ focus has changed hugely, she finds. “It’s all about families, what kids can do for the day now…”

LATER AT THEthree-and-a-half hour Crowning Cabaret in the fine new sports hall, Daniel O'Donnell's sister, Kathleen, feeds mints and Pringles to The Irish Timeswhile Daniel, his wife, mother and other O'Donnells rev up for the show in which Daniel's niece Margaret, is the Dublin entry.

This however, is not just any old lovely girls pageant. Hosted by 26-year-old Dave O’Connor, a presenter on i102-104FM, this is a pageant on steroids. In his opener, Dave warns: “One of the rules is no fornicating with the escorts – well, we’ll see how the Marys answer to that later on . . .”.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” splutters Daniel.

Suffice to say, some found the ensuing show hilarious and others didn't. Glass of wine in one hand and Kathleen's Pringles in the other, The Irish Timeswas in heaven as Dave ordered an escort to lie on the floor and told his world-class Irish dancer Mary (speciality – "fast in heavy shoes") to "dance really close to his face without kicking him" . . . Directed the Gaeltacht Mary to enact a scene from Coronation Street. . . Announced the availability of sick bags when Eamon – a nice, brave, smitten escort – recited a poem he'd written "in Doherty's yard about half an hour ago" in honour of the wryly humorous New York Mary . . . Twisted Armagh Mary's arm to spill the gossip on the others on the basis that "ah, you all say ye'll all be seein' one another again, but pretty soon you'll all be bitchin' about each other and ye'll never see each other again" . . . Performed a horrendous impersonation of Daniel O'Donnell singing Old Fashioned Lovewhile Daniel's niece did a moonwalk to it . . . And goaded Down Mary into admitting she'd been seeing another escort. Yes, admitted the poor girl finally through pursed lips, he was a guard. Yes, he was a local one. "Oh, that'll be Kieran," said Kathleen happily, as a buzz ran through the hall.

Flushed with love – or something, it was the same giddy Kieran who fell noisily off the stage while his own charge, the Derry Mary, was out front singing a fantastically tragic ballad about a young one, premature death and a banshee, and wondering why the audience was cracking up.

For all that, it would be true to say that by 11pm, we knew far, far less about the Marys themselves than if Gaybo had been gently stewing them – no idea what most of them do for a living, for example, or even a lot of the surnames. Did it matter? Most of the Marys were well up to it. Some obviously felt a bit mangled.

When the winner of the €1,000 prize and other goodies – the composed, bright and beautiful Edinburgh Mary, Jemma Ferry – was declared, her almost incoherently emotional father, Paddy, a local man turned Edinburgh dentist for 30 years, called our Dave “a handful”, saying Jemma’s ability to handle him had made her dad all the prouder.

The warm, dry streets of Dungloe were packed at midnight as Jemma, the 43rd new Mary, emerged from a fire-cracking boat float.

Meanwhile, the New York Mary, Lilly Meredith Wild, a wise, wry, witty young Californian film-maker, whose party piece was a four-minute film of her own, called Tasty, pondered the unique charm of it all. "Being chosen was very random and serendipitous for me. I was in an internship and this lady comes up, says 'you look like you're Irish, why not sign up for a pageant?'.

I had no connection to my heritage – none at all,” she admits. It was the offer of a free trip that swung it.