ROSE OF TRALEE: Times are changing at the Rose of Tralee, with a pared-back committee, altered TV coverage, and a bigger prize. But will all this be enough to save it? Róisín Ingle talks to the outgoing Rose, Orla Tobin, and others about the future of the festival.
Back in January, at the beginning of what financially has been something of an annus horribilis for the Rose of Tralee festival, reigning Rose Orla Tobin wept at the table in her mother's kitchen in Dublin. "I was in bits, I was crying and saying I'd had enough, I didn't want to do it any more," remembers Tobin, who is getting ready to hand over her crown in 10 days' time. "I was being kept in the dark about the financial problems. I didn't know if there was even going to be another festival, and I got to a point where I thought, if the festival is finished then they don't need a Rose so I might as well stand down."
She may not have been the first Rose of Tralee in the 45-year history of the festival to consider prematurely handing back her crown, but she is the first one to speak openly about the experience. As speculation grew that in the absence of severe financial pruning the nation's leading lovely girl competition would not survive, the 23-year-old says she was put in an impossible position by organisers, despite her repeated requests to be kept informed.
"It was a shock to discover the festival was having financial problems and that they had been going on for a while. I remember seeing it on the news one night and not having a clue," she says, speaking of the period late last year when it became clear the festival owed hundreds of thousands of euro to creditors which it was unable to pay.
"The thing was that, as Rose of Tralee, everyone expected me to know what was going on. They would ask: 'What's the story Orla? Where did all the money go? Is there going to be a festival next year?', and I couldn't answer because I didn't know. I feel I should have been told but nobody seemed to think it was important that I was told. At the worst point I just felt that there was no point in carrying on. In the end, I didn't want to let everyone down, so I decided to continue."
There has been more drama associated with the Rose of Tralee in the past two years than in more than four decades of the most famous festival in Ireland. In 2002, Italian Rose Tamara Gervasoni was arrested for shoplifting and then later spoke openly about her struggle with bulimia, an event that was handled sensitively by organisers and gave the competition more contemporary cachet than it had ever previously enjoyed. That controversy, along with the introduction of a fresh face in presenter Ryan Tubridy, led to even more media coverage than usual at last year's event where Tobin, who works in Bank of Ireland's global markets department, was crowned.
"It was such a shock to win, and the year started off fine, except for the fact that I was led to believe I would have a clothing sponsor. I didn't, and had to spend a lot on outfits for the various functions you have to attend as Rose. I was lucky that I kept my job because I wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise," she says.
There were other organisational problems with her schedule for international trips, as key festival personnel became preoccupied with finding a way to rescue the event. "Between December and March I just didn't have a schedule, which made planning for work difficult," she explains. And while Tobin is particularly proud of her trip to Yemen as UNICEF Ireland ambassador for girls' education, her reign was marred by the uncertainty of being the face of a festival that appeared to be falling apart.
Rose of Tralee-bashing is a familiar sport at this time of the year. A twee celebration of Irish femininity, according to some, it's a competition based on a sentimental ballad written by Tralee man William Mulchinock which sets "the truth in her eye" as the fuzzy standard by which Roses are judged. Organisers can shout until the pale moon rises that it is not a beauty competition, but as long as women from Toronto to Tallaght are paraded on stage in sashes and evening dresses, their cries will sound hollow. If it looks like a beauty pageant, then it generally is one, it might be fair to conclude.
On the other hand, the President, Mrs McAleese, has formally endorsed the contest in the past, saying it was unlike other annual festivals around the world which, "despite growing international distaste, exploit rather than celebrate femininity". Some believe the festival - which is worth millions into Tralee, but nowhere near the €20 million sometimes quoted - has no place in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.
But in a world where everything from food to culture is increasingly homogenous, others argue that we should cling to, rather than ridicule, the festival's determinedly Irish identity.
"It's like the campaign to get rid of the Angelus. Why should we scrap something just because it is uniquely Irish? We should be looking for things to hold onto, like the Rose of Tralee, that set us apart from everyone else," says PR consultant Brian Harmon, one of the creditors who steered the festival through the Gervasoni crisis. In the end, the festival was saved when five investors with Kerry connections stumped up the €350,000 needed to pay creditors, who agreed to accept 30 per cent of what they were owed.
Former Kerry Group director Anthony O'Gara, brought in by the Rose Committee to create a rescue plan for the festival, was their knight with shining chequebook who convinced his four co-investors to ride in and save the event. Initially, he hoped to convince the local town council to help, but salvaging another project, the Jeanie Johnston famine ship, had already depleted their coffers. "It went to the wire; at one point it looked as though we would have to liquidate the company, but at the last minute we got the financial support we needed," he says.
The transition between the old and the new hasn't been entirely seamless, with locals pointing to the fact that very few of the 56-strong committee are involved this year.
"There was quite a lot of goodwill toward the old regime but the people we made commitments to were quite insistent that the new structure would have commercial credibility," says O'Gara, explaining why most of the old members of the Rose Committee are not involved this year. "We are hoping to involve them again in September."
Traditionally - and the Rose is nothing if not traditional - the personnel-heavy committee, along with the leagues of industrious volunteers, worked for free but with the promise of free tickets to events such as the Rose Ball or the Golden Rose. O'Gara maintains that this free-ticket culture was one of the reasons the festival has struggled over the years. This year, even the five main investors, including O'Gara, will be buying their own tickets and they have asked that volunteers do the same.
Other cutbacks have slashed the usual Rose of Tralee budget from just over €1 million to €700,000. The famous Dome will be attached to the back of the Brandon Hotel, one of the festival's biggest creditors, saving on extra security, catering and bars. The Golden Rose event, a knees-up for people associated with the festival, has been cancelled. The Rose Ball will be held in the hotel and not in the big tent, while there is no big-name outdoor concert this year. Punters will have to pay to see the likes of Aslan this time around.
In the 1950s, when a group of businessmen met in a Tralee pub and came up with the idea for the festival, they weren't so much motivated by the prospect of reconnecting the diaspora, as by trying to get people to stay and spend more money in the town. An informed local source who has followed the festival's fortunes over the years says nobody in the town gets misty-eyed about Mulchinock the songwriter or his girlfriend Mary, the original Rose of Tralee.
"It is and always has been about how much money Tralee can make out of it. That is what the locals are interested in," he said. This more than anything is thought to have galvanised locals when it looked last year as though the festival might be coming to a thorny end.
The source described the festival as "a financial basket case" which has needed rescuing for some years. "It was important for a lot of people in Tralee that the festival be saved, because avoiding liquidation meant that some searching questions wouldn't be asked about exactly how the festival had been run in the past," he says.
Tobin says she spoke to five former Roses from the past 10 years and that they all had similar complaints about how they were treated. In one case, she says, a solicitor was involved. "They really enjoyed their time but they did feel that they hadn't been looked after as well as they expected," she says.
"The biggest asset the festival has is the brand," says Harmon. "The value of that brand is tied to whoever is Rose of Tralee at the time. If that person is neglected or feels she can't carry on, then you have nothing left but a logo."
Ryan Tubridy, who will present the TV programme again this year, agrees. "It's fascinating that in the past couple of years both Orla and Tamara have spoken out about different elements of the festival that they were not happy with, and the time has come for organisers to pay attention to what the Roses are saying," he says. "They picked very modern women to represent the festival and modern women are going to speak up when something isn't right."
In terms of viewing figures, the show is still one of RTÉ's top 10 programmes and, unlike the Mary of Dungloe festival in Donegal which is not attracting audiences, the Rose of Tralee's general popularity, no matter how much critics gripe, shows no sign of waning.
O'Gara says the value of the winning Rose's prize has been increased from €20,000 to €25,000, partly as a result of Tobin's experience. "Being the Rose of Tralee can be an expensive business, and that's why we enhanced the prize money," he says. He has told investors that their money is safe and appears convinced that the Rose of Tralee can be developed into a viable commercial event in future years. O'Gara plans to grow the centres both at home and across the world, with a Rose from every county eventually competing in a regional final.
The RTÉ television broadcast, a two-night spectacle which has largely remained the same over the years in keeping with the festival's if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it philosophy, is due to incorporate more from the Roses throughout the week.
"The programme needs to change to represent what is happening on the streets of Tralee; it needs to show more of the festival and more of the Roses. This might do something to tackle the cynicism surrounding the event," says Harmon.
Harmon maintains that Tobin's decision to continue with her duties in the midst of organisational chaos saved the Rose of Tralee festival, but the last thing she wants is to come across as Poor Little Rose Girl.
"I am not speaking out of bitterness," she says. "I am not ungrateful for all the brilliant things that happened during the year. In the past, the Roses of Tralee I have talked to were afraid to speak out about parts of their reign they were unhappy with, but if people don't speak out, how does anything ever change?"
Change has not been a feature of the Rose of Tralee in the past, but if the festival is to survive, it's a concept the latest crop of organisers will have to embrace.
The Rose of Tralee Festival runs from August 19th to 24th. Coverage of the competition is on RTÉ 1 on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th from 8-11 p.m.