Big Brother was not the first thing that sprang to mind for the UK Rose, Kelly Ann McAnally, when she was asked to participate in a true-life daily documentary on being a Rose of Tralee contestant.
"It was before Big Brother came out," she said. Ms McAnally from Ballymena is one of four Roses in the RTE documentary to be broadcast in November.
The UK Rose, the Texas Rose, the Galway Rose and the Dubai Rose are being followed around in their various headquarters by a TV crew. And there is no escape, even in their bedrooms on the fourth floor of Tralee's Brandon Hotel.
Having never been a Rose or on TV before, Kelly Ann says it's all part of the show for her.
Tom Flanagan, the producer-director of Behind The Rose, admits there is a certain Big Brother element. "We gain access to the girls nobody has had before."
It is unlikely that the Dubai Rose, Claire Marie Ward (22), will talk much. The fluent Irish-speaking teacher was enjoying the Club na Feile, the Irish cultural club, and was a bit hoarse from speaking Irish on Raidio na Gaeltachta and visiting mothers and babies in the maternity ward at Tralee General Hospital.
Kelly Ann and the Kerry Rose, Naomi O'Connor, are joint favourites for the millennium title.
Last year's winner from Cork was very much in evidence yesterday in a deep purple trouser suit. Geraldine O'Grady said the final days of her reign were providing her with an opportunity for "great philosophical meanderings".
While sad that her year has come to an end, she is itching to start her MA in women's studies at UCC. Her year as a Rose has given her plenty of food for thought on women who are always being written out of Irish history. She is thinking strongly of "a formal academic study" of the Rose now that she has the inside track.
It was raining in Tralee, but not enough to dampen predictions that this year's festival would be the biggest money-spinner yet for the town, topping the £20 million mark.
By last night everyone knew the Roses' best-kept secret. Westlife, who performed a concert at Oak Park, Tralee, on Sunday, would be on stage during the interval in part one of the Rose interviews on RTE.